happy anniversary to me

ty bl and pg
for being such a fabulous db's
that I saw the light
and had my ttjasi moment
which everyone should have

and now I spend my days as a sahm
lmfao at my crazy kids

ty ty ty

there is nothing as peaceful as holding a sleeping baby

There is nothing as peaceful as holding a sleeping baby
as watching her as she turns her head and closes her eyes
feeling her body relax and twitch slightly as she drifts to the other side
hearing her little nose chirp as her breathing slows
feeling her warm chubby thighs on your arms
lightly touching the dimples in her hands
and admiring the heart on her face

I hear the sounds downstairs, their laughter at some invented game
and I am thankful, grateful for the sleeping soul in my arms
the raucous angel downstairs who formed me when she came out of me
the man I have loved for half my life

And my mind starts to drift in prayer
thank you lord for these people who are my world
thank you for those that made me
thank you lord for the people who came before, and who are with you now
for the time we shared with them
let me cherish this time, now
make me an instrument of your peace

I think farther away...
thank you for the people who love my people
thank you for your children, lord, in this world
in this beautiful, magical world that you have made for us

let us love our neighbors, lord
let us love our enemies, lord
bless our enemies, lord
and bless their sleeping children

amen

dinner with the terrible twos

So we came back Sunday from a week in castroville. I was ready to leave on Friday, and Hyphen wanted me to come home on tuesday, but my mom said my sister was coming in for the weekend just to see us. (please note: when I asked Audrey why she was coming, she said "because mom told me to.") So my sister gets to castroville with her adorable girls. Turns out, they only look adorable. They are actually somewhat demonic, as they just turned two years old.

Here is what it is like to eat dinner with the terrible twos:

1. sit down to eat and everyone is somewhat cranky because it is dinner and mom is stressed like company's coming even though it is just us.

2. Sam won't stay in the chair. Get in the chair Sam. get in the chair. Sam, get back in the chair. Sam, you can't get out until you eat some food. Etc. Meanwhile, Lilly is calmly eating her food, Annabelle is whining about having lettuce on her plate and Tallulah has abandoned her high chair for my lap.

3. Sam finally decides to eat something. But now, Lilly has finished eating, gotten out of her chair, and is waiting by the back door to go inside (we decided outside was the way to go for hosing off purposes).

4. When no one lets her in, Lilly decides to get naked and run around the yard.

5. Audrey corrals her.

6. My mom gets her interested in something and Audrey gets to eat her first bite of dinner.

7. Annabelle finishes her meal and gets on the swing and the twos go over to play with her/fight over the swing, despite the fact they have hardly eaten and, at this point, Audrey could give two shits.

The whole time all of this was happening Tallulah was stuffing her face with fish, which made for a rather pungent diaper the next morning.

Then it was time to load up the whole crew into the tub. Audrey was in charge of the bath, as she is somewhat of a control freak and is scared that I will let the kids drown. So I go outside to start cleaning up and see my mom and dad, sitting amidst the carnage, each drinking a beer. Were they basking in the glow of having all their children and grandchildren under one roof? Not exactly. The expressions on their faces said it all--when in the hell are these people going to leave?

a tale of two sock drawers

hers


his

After much finagling, I finally succeeded in getting H to clean out his clothes drawers and remove items so I could close the drawers without fear of breaking them. For someone who is sooooo neat, he doesn't do this very often. But it was cold and rainy yesterday, too cold to work on the coop, so he obliged.

Today I was folding some stuff and realized that he probably (well, undoubtably) had some kind of drawer organzitional system in place.

Me: so, how do you do your socks?

H: black, gray, brown, dress khaki, khaki, arglye, white athletic and wool.

Me: wait, let me write this down.

H: if you look, its self explanatory.

Me: I was talking about for my blog

H: I am not saying anything else.

In case you were wondering, I there have been far, far better things that I have done, than keeping track of an obsessive compulsive's sock drawer.

and when he plays boogie woogie bugle he was busy as a buzzz bee

That is a line from an Andrew's sisters song. I know lots of lines from Andrews sisters songs. We listen to them, again and again and again, my personal favorite being "in apple blossom time."

See, a few months ago, Annabelle asked me if I would catch a grenade for her. And that's when I thought, "hmmm, maybe the pop music needs to stop." You see, I have this theory that over exposure to popular culture is what makes kids go crazy and become slutty. Some people may think I am crazy for thinking this, and that I can't protect my kids from everything and they may be right, but while you are making that argument I am learning that bei mir bist du shoen means you're grand.

So I went upstairs, to the back of the attic, dug out the box of cds we never listen too and took out Glenn Miller, the Mills Brothers, the Andrews Sisters and Rosemary Clooney. I loaded up the car cd player and now I've gotta a gal that loves me so, glow little glow worm glow!