too many annes

The other night I was supposed to go to bed early, but instead I had a lovely time reading Anne of Green Gables. I have wanted to read it for a long time, but am the worst at remembering and checking out books. Pretty much the only books I read are the ones that get plopped into my hands. So when a dear friend gave me the most beautiful birthday present, I was delighted.


I started out reading it in my usual imprudent way of staying up way too late, but then realized there was no hurry and have just picked it up every once in a while when I want a peaceful read. I vaguely remember the story from watching the movie as a kid, so there's no dire sense of "How does it end?!"It is such a lovely book, even just seeing it laying on my pile of books makes me smile.

So as I was reading, one line really hit me. "There's such a lot of different Anne's in me. I sometimes think that is why I'm such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn't be half so interesting."

I don't think I'm much like Anne AT ALL-not a pretender or imaginer, but I do often feel like there are too many Marys in me. In my mothering, I oscillate between wanting to be an unschooling, homesteading, hippy mom and sending my sons away to a boarding school or maybe a monastery. Sometimes I really like our little home and our little life and our security,  but sometimes I feel sooo restless and want to have some big adventure! There are several jobs that I think would be very fulfilling, but how to chose a direction? I used to just feel broken. Would get so annoyed with myself. "Just put your hand to the plow and don't look back."  But lately I keep thinking that God makes us the way he does for a reason, and the reason isn't just to torment Tim. Yes, some of it is imperfection that needs to be refined and worked out. Yes, I know we have restless hearts because we are not made for this world.  But I'm trying to also pray for wisdom. How do you want to use me, Lord? Discerning.

just a typical night.

disclaimer: this post is pretty dumb. i wanted to see how annoying it was to insert pictures, since last time i did it, it was like two years ago and it was sooo slow and terrible on our old computer. turns out, i'm a big dumb-o and it's actually pretty easy. and, joel has been a super blogging machine lately and i felt like i owed him for all the amusement he has been providing.

tim and i were laying in bed tonight, watching videos/reading on our respective screens when i brought up an escape ladder that i had researched earlier in the day. max has been really freaked out about the possibility of a fire, and although i'd rather not spend the money on something so boring, better safe than sorry, and if it buys him some peace of mind, i guess i love him that much. so, escape ladder. to which tim replies, "what, so you can just pee off the side of the bed?" me: "??????!!!!!!!!??????" "what does that have to do with an escape ladder?" tim: "oh, i thought you said escape bladder." changing my train of thought, i had to question him about the purpose of an escape bladder, so he explained that it'd be for when you didn't want to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. after a long day, it gave us a good laugh.

then i heard a bunch of loud noises from the porch, like our pet opossum was making his nightly dinner stop. tim hopped up, grabbed the shot gun, and went to the window in the dining room. he reported back that it was a skunk and grabbed his ear protection. i got up to look at it because skunks are pretty adorable. the cats' food bowls are right under the window, so it allows a great view of whatever critter is visiting our porch buffet. if i could unsmellify a skunk, i would totally want one as a pet. i love the way they wander around, seem pretty shy, and their fur is amazing. this guy was on high alert, so his/her tail was up straight, but with all this long, curled over fur/hair on the end. it looked like this guy/gal was better groomed/styled than my hair has been...ever. to top off the amazing display, i kept hearing wanda sykes voice in my head. after it finished off the cat food, it crawled off the porch.

this picture does not do wanda's beauty justice.

thinking the chances of our house getting sprayed at this point were pretty low, i opened the window to see what it's reaction would be. it started to run, so tim went running after it, kinda. if i went after critters with a shotgun, i'd probably accidentally shoot the van or something because i would be so, "get it!!!!" that i wouldn't evaluate my shot. like this, but in english and with cursing:




thankfully, tim has a lot more sense in this department. in an attempt to get a safe shot he chased after it, yell singing, "stinky buns! stinky buns! stinky buns!" the yell singing was, i think, to amuse me and to give him courage/distract himself from the danger he was pursuing.  the vocals, combined with the visuals, did indeed amuse me. tim is very tenderfooted, so it was more like he was hobble chasing the skunk. and...he was only clad in his underwear. maybe it was one of those "you had to be there moments". but, considering this hunting apparel, maybe not.

thankfully, it's not all grumps, all the time around here. 

*** after having tim proof this to make sure he was comfortable with it, he insists he was "bounding" across the yard in a very manly way. and the yell singing was purely for his sake. he didn't realize i had heard that.

cluster.cuss.

This is really long. I guess you could call it kind of a "day in the life" post. You can skip it unless really bored, and even then, I've warned you. I should have gone to bed early instead of staying up to write this, but I'm pretty sure someday, I'll be glad I preserved this slice of our circus. 

No decluttering post here. Today was too good not to throw down some words for posterity. Because the children have all been asleep for over an hour, I can start to laugh about how ridiculous this stuff is. And because in the thick of it, I had some amusing text exchanges and a phone call that pulled me back from the brink.

Yesterday Tim and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. By God's grace, we have survived each other. To celebrate, I forgot about the blissful occasion until my mom reminded me. For the last 6 months, I've thought off and on how it'd be really nice to do something extra special. Then the plague descended on our house and my brain melted. Once he got home and we got the boys put to bed, we put our new vacuum together while I informed him that one of our children got a note from school about something that isn't a big deal in the grand scheme but makes us feel bad as parents. "Cheers! We suck as parents." Oh vacuum humor-it's what 10 years together gets you.

John Paul fought his nap like a crazed animal yesterday, but I finally got him sedated after bringing the big boys home from school. Then I let him sleep way later than I probably should have. John Paul is cute, but he does not make the after school homework/dinner time segment of my day a fun one. So without his screaming or paper snatching, I helped Ben on his book report and made dinner in peace. If your second grader does not have to do book reports, but think that sounds way fun and you're feeling sad about missing out, you are more than welcome to come hang with Ben while he slogs through his. The salt in our very fresh, gaping book report wound was the assignment sheet the teacher sent home for the next book report. Before we had even turned this one in.

What did I make for our anniversary dinner you are wondering? Well, considering Tim wouldn't be home for dinner and I had ignored the thawed pack in the fridge as long as I could, me and the boys feasted on liver. This is worth noting because I really, really hate liver. I have started making it about once every couple of months (the amount of time it takes me to build up a new round of courage) because we get it from processing since no one else wants it (free! i love free!) and because it's exceptionally healthy. I have great hopes that if I make the boys choke it down occasionally, they will have exceptionally straight teeth and the strongest of physiques. Darn you Weston Price for always being in the back of my head. (If you don't know the work of Weston Price, I'm not going to explain it. And consider yourself lucky for being able to feed your children with maybe a little less guilt.)

Like I said, I hate liver. We had to eat it as kids, and I swore that I never would as an adult. It's the one food that as a kid, made me gag with every bite. I'm only a little bit better about it now. But because I have to play it cool with the boys and can't gag with every bite, I have found that aggressively chewing it on the extreme side of my mouth, while cursing it in my head, and sometimes running my feet in place under my chair, seems to get me by. Last night I only (discretely) gagged twice. The boys don't like it, but eat it just as well as other things they don't like. No gagging on their parts.

Since I let John Paul sleep so late, he got to stay up later and hang out with Tim while I put the big boys to bed. I came downstairs and Tim was putting him to bed, which has happened probably less than 5 times in all of his life. When Tim came out, he said, "I think it's so sweet how John Paul lets me know when he's done rocking and ready to lay down." I scowled at him. Hard.  Although we had been on a pretty good streak of bedtimes for several months and I had hoped that we were consistently past obnoxious bedtime shenanigans from our children, John Paul has been "not sweet" at nap and bedtime lately. I usually nurse and rock him, then put him in his bed after a while. Lately he does not really want to nurse, or rock, or have me hold him, but he also definitely does NOT want to be put in his bed.

(Boy, that's a lot and I didn't even get to today.)

Ben got a fever during the night-so cue 'ol Mr. "my fingers are like string" I've gotten used to his fever weirdness and was reminded that Tim also kind of hallucinates when he has fevers. When we were dating, he told me alllll about the Civil War, but without making any sense. "How can Ben have a fever when he ate the healthiest of all healthy foods for dinner?" you are asking yourself. Maybe the problem is I'm feeding him too healthy! Tomorrow we'll get donuts to celebrate yet another missed day of school.

So Ben was home from school today, but not uncomfortable, so that was nice. He worked on his workbooks they have every night so that he wouldn't be crushed by the extra stuff that would come home with Max. I hated make-up work so much as a kid that I figured it was very rarely worth it to try to fake it to stay home. I hate make-up work just as much as a parent. You're trying to ease this kid back into things and build them back up, but they have the stress of extra work. A necessary evil.

Max isn't getting enough attention in all this hullabuloo. Thankfully, he's our easy child right now. He gets his homework done super fast and keeps himself busy with art projects. He makes a lot of messes, but project messes are my least despised of messes. But don't worry, he's not perfect. Every night he comes into the kitchen and asks what's for dinner. I then tell him, and he goes sulking away 9/10 times. For a while, I refused to answer him, which he didn't think was funny. Very rarely, he answers, "eh, I'm okay with that." Gee thanks pal. On the very, very rare occasion it's something he really likes, he becomes overwhelmingly excited. "Slappy when happy" is how I describe it.

The other funny thing about Max is that his ears are stopped up right now from the cold he had? I'm of the "wait it out" school of parenting thought, trying to do a few things at home. But his teacher probably thinks we're idiots for not taking him to the doctor. Well, his sub-his teacher's on maternity leave. Hopefully they will clear by the time she gets back. Otherwise we'll just have to say, "Hey lady, we're sorry, but isn't it already obvious we're not very good parents?!" I felt guilted into cutting Max's hair this fall when he reported home, "Mrs. Teacher asked me when I was going to get a hair cut?" She doesn't understand my street urchin vision. But back to his ears. Communicating with Max is like trying to talk to a 90 year old former machinist. Everything is a loud, "HUH?!" But he's a nosey old man, so even if I'm not talking to him, it's still, "HUH?!" There was a couple days were both he AND Ben had the pluggy ears. Dinner with Norman and Walter was a real treat.

Well, I've sure written a lot. Some people exercise out their frustrations. I'll use the cold weather as an excuse for that not being an option, Cause this weather?! Isn't it a real treat. There's a gal I'm FB friends with who lives in Florida who has posted swimming pictures twice this month. I want to kick her tan, exposed shins!!!

The real gem of the last two days has been John Paul's sleep. Yesterday had nothin' on today, and as of last night, I considered yesterday pretty annoying. He was so deliriously tired this afternoon that he was screaming, screaming, screaming but when I would try to pick him up, he would dislocate his shoulders and slide half way out of my hands and flop on the floor. Then he would throw himself at me like he wanted to be picked up. Then repeat the melting thing. As he screamed in his room, since there was nothing I could do for him, Ben sympathetically said, "Why don't you just go in and nurse and rock him, Mom?" I thought about replying, "Why don't YOU go nurse and rock him?!" but refrained and instead described what John Paul did when I tried to help him. He had no more parenting tips for me after my description.

Why was John Paul so beyond tired. Well, probably because I do everything wrong as a parent, but also because he figured out how to climb out of the pack 'n' play that is his bed. I had hoped keeping him in the pack 'n' play would buy more time than the crib did for his brothers (and honestly I think Max was just shy of two before he started bailing out? so that was nice) because I thought the soft sides would make it harder to get monkey toe grip as opposed to the rails. I don't know how he's getting out. I didn't ever hear any "thump" like he's falling out. Nap time involved a lot of praying and not charitable thoughts on my part. I think John Paul was cursing at me. Then because I'm a complete idiot, I decided to make almond butter 45 minutes into his nap. Making almond butter is THE loudest thing I ever do in the kitchen. I avoid it even when no one is sleeping because I don't like how loud it is. Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! If Tim had done that, I probably would have....not been happy with him. 45 minutes was NOT enough nap for John Paul and he let us know how unhappy he was about my stupid almond butter making.

When I went back to work when Max was just shy of three, people asked me if I liked working outside the home again. My response was, "I like not being yelled at by the people I spend my day with. No matter how mad my boss is with me, he never yells at me and definitely doesn't hit me." Today was one of those days that daycare starting sounding mighty wonderful!!!

After dinner John Paul was being really cute and playing with Max. It made me do one of those annoying parent, "maybe it's all worth it afterall" things. Then he lost it, started doing the shoulder dislocatey don't want to be held but really want to be held but don't want to be held thing again. It doesn't even need to be a daycare at this point. A nice kennel will be perfectly acceptable.

So I tried to put him to bed. He climbed out a bunch of times. Each time he would go and unplug his fan we use for white noise. Like, "Oh hey guys, I actually don't need to go to bed." but with screaming. I would go back in, plug in the fan, kiss the flailing mess, and put him back in his bed. One of the times, I plugged the fan in before I picked him up because he was so hard to hold. He took that as his chance to try to stumble, drunkenly out of his room through the cracked door, with his two, rather bulky, precious blankets in his arms. Poor kid. I kinda just wanted to let him go and see what he would do. But I knew it would only be more floor flopping, and at least the carpet in his room is a lot softer than the hardwood.

Today, the Pope Francis quote from his Sunday address kept popping up in my newsfeed, about motherhood being a beautiful sacrifice. I'm not quite so sure about the beautiful part, Papa.

Good days and bad days

I keep trying to write/edit a follow up post to that last doozy. I hate that it just hangs out there. I keep trying to write a tidy, life's getting better post. And some days I have it almost done, and then a real kicker of a day plows us over and I don't want to be a liar.

When I wrote that last post, I was at the peak of exhaustion. Or one of many peaks. Sleep is important, and 15 months without a full night takes a big toll. (That is a huge understatement.)  I can joke about it or make light about it, but honestly, last year, for a lot of different reasons, had some pretty dark days. I've tried to write about it, but the words are so insufficient, and it is so very complex.

Writing about hard things is...hard. It takes a lot of energy and still often just doesn't measure up. Very, very rarely, if ever, do I think we, the reader of blogs, get an accurate understanding of someone else's life. Because I really, really struggle with envy, i try to be honest about how i'm feeling, but even my "honesty" is pretty edited in this space. That has always been something that I wrestle with. I miss writing, but I don't want to be a whiner on bad days, nor only highlight the good days. This is where I could say something obnoxious about balance. Screw balance. It doesn't exist. We have restless hearts in this fallen world.

The thing that I have learned and keep trying to remember is that, yes, there will be bad days. There will also be good days. There is no equation that when properly executed equals all good days. But there are also things that can be done to make bad days better. The sun will shine again. We will all be simultaneously healthy someday.

I am getting more sleep these days. Thank you Jesus! I'm trying to take better care of myself. Tim has some exciting work changes on the horizon. We are blessed to have amazing friends and family. A couple weeks ago, Ben told me I was the best mom in the world, only one centimeter below Mother Mary. Those are very good things.

Last week Max got some burns on his face because I was tired and spaced out in the kitchen. As he was screaming and clutching his eyes, Ben said, "Well I hope he isn't blind." To which  I hissed, "Shut up! That was a stupid thing to say!" We don't say shut up to each other and we don't say stupid. I don't feel good about hissing at my children. Those were not so great things. But I said I was sorry, which I then had to repeat twice, because his cold had his ears plugged up. "Oh, MORE servings of humble pie. Thank you. Yes, I suppose I needed that." And Max's eyes are okay. Thank you Guardian Angel for protecting him!

So, good days and bad days. The sun will shine again.

But I'd like to take a break from writing about feeeeeeeelings and am thinking i'd like to use this space for some accountability in decluttering. Ooooooor it will lay dormant again. Who knows. :)

snap and pops under the toilet seat.

i scribbled this out last night because i just needed to heave it off my chest. it helped a little. if you need to read something cheerier, try mary ellen's or joel's writing. genetically, joel got all the sunshine and i got all the vinegar. 

yep, that happened. tim has actually done it to me before and was successful in scaring me, but this time, i think it was ben. tonight max spotted some leftover snap and pops and after a long day, i said, sure, let's go outside and be distracted for a while. ben really wanted to scare tim when he got home, so he was devising all sorts of methods, one including a catapult. (that boy is like his godfather in so many ways, it's a little frightening.) he settled for the under the door mat suggestion that i offered, but unfortunately, max kept forgetting about them. he went in and out of the house three times, setting them off. his reaction was great each time- not scared but frustrated, but just funny frustrated and not melt down frustrated, which is a small miracle. when tim did come home, they failed to go off, even after several times of me getting him to walk in and out of the house. because i grew up with brothers, not much of life with all guys phases me. but this was definitely one of those moments were i had to roll my eyes.

that little snippet was my way of blowing off steam because life has really been kicking my butt. like, i've tried to put it in words, but the words are worrisome to read and the kind of hard that's impossible to capture in words. life has no good reason to be this hard right now. no one is dying. we have a home, food, safety. but it is. and no matter how much i tell myself it shouldn't be, it is. the level of stress that makes my chest tight and makes me feel like i need to throw up and you joke about so you don't cry, but then sometimes you cry too. i'm an obnoxious over-analyzer. i want to get stuff done, but i feel like i'm trapped in a sloth's body. i'm constantly overwhelmed by my boys. i want time for me, me, me, but know that i need more sleep, but then get lost online until late. or when i do go to bed early, i get woken up by my weirdo kids. this morning at 3:30, it was ben, in our bed (what?! when did he come in) telling me that his fingers felt weird like they were becoming too skinny. because he had been sick with a bad headache and fever, i spent the next 30 minutes worried that he had meningitis. i think it was just his fever breaking. then max came in at 4:30 and ben again at 6. we moved john paul into his own room last week, so although he has been sleeping great, i keep waking up at 5 am- his darling wake up hour when he was in our room, and worrying that he must be dead because he didn't wake up all night, or that he woke up and screamed and screamed and i didn't wake up even though i have a baby monitor right next to me but maybe the frequency got switched and now our bond of trust and protection is forever ruined and and and the crazy rolls on.

i'm beating myself up because we should have moved him a loooonnnnnnnnnnggggggg time ago because he is sleeping GREAT and i could have been sleeping too. i'm beating myself up because ben is sick. beating myself up because the boys have been eating too much toxic gluten. because i'm pretty sure ben is really behind on his math facts and will obviously be a failure at life and i should have made him do flash cards this summer. and he's having a really hard time concentrating, again, i'm sure gluten/food dye/something else that he wants to put in his mouth and i don't want him to and why can't we just live off of air?!

school has been really hard. i spend the hours from wake up until getting john paul down for a nap chasing him, lifting him off the table, taking away markers max left out, all the while fantasizing about a nap. then i get him down and realize that i NEED to catch up on the house. sometimes i do, but just as often i check fb for just one thing and then loose an hour into the black hole of the internet. then i scramble to pick up, or feeling totally frustrated with the mess AND exhausted, crawl into bed for a nap only to have him wake up. repeat chasing. pick up boys from school and feel the crushing exhaustion and the crushing stress of homework, dinner, john paul shrieking because he doesn't want another nap but needs one.

max and ben are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo SOOOOOOOOOOOO different. max wants to get his homeword done. gets it done quickly. is annoyed with me for getting distracted by the shrieking and not reading the next problem to him right away. ben is sooooooooooooo distracted and i have to battle to keep him on track. can't we just not eat. or not do homework. or not have the shrieking. ben's solution one day: "i'll just not do my simple solutions (workbooks) and walk my recesses every day. i'm fine with that." sometimes i thank God that he is so laid back to absorb all the things i screw up on as my oldest (math facts!!!!!!!!) and sometimes i just need him to care a little more. and max, thank goodness he is the funny little old man that he is who wears his pants up too high and reminds me that he only has one clean uniform shirt left and is soooo diligent about making sure i sign his behavior sheet right away, but give me a break a little bit. ben went months without wearing a belt in kindergarten because he realized his sweatshirt covered it and no one noticed. max asks me if his shirt needs to be tucked in and if he has to wear a belt with his BLUE jeans. "they have to be blue. not any other color of pants for spirit day." i hope that max's rule following will come in handy in high school and beyond to keep ben out of jail, but right now, i am just so overwhelmed.

i'm thankful for tim's hard work and am so thankful that he has a job that he likes, but i just soo wish he could be home for dinner because ben eats like a fasting tortoise and john paul prefers to eat standing in his high chair and even though he's the scrawniest little guy, he hardly wants to eat either and charmingly uses his "all done" sign long before he should be all done.

i make myself crazy because i say, "no more babies because they make me crazy and i can't handle these guys" but then i have a quite moment with one of them, just the two of us, and i think, "how could we not have more of these wonderful creatures". i try to pray through my days, and i know that my prayers and offerings MUST do some good, but our world just seems like such a bad and broken place in so many ways and i worry about what the future holds. this is all pretty much exactly how i was feeling last september and then i was a very hard winter. because winter: little sunshine, cold, wind, cold, little sunshine.

and then there's our house. oh the house. have i maybe fantasized about my own tiny house where only i get to live? yes.

i feel like we need housekeeper/nanny/cook or maybe just another adult in our household to keep things afloat. sister wife, maybe? there's just too much to research,

the boys and i have been reading a wonderful book about pope pius X. one of the last chapters talks about how he predicted WWI and about how he died of a broken heart, knowing all the suffering that would take place. and talks about the prophesies of malachi. then i read this yesterday,
 "”We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has ever experienced. I do not think the wide circle of the American Society , or the wide circle of the Christian Community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-church, between the Gospel and the anti-gospel, between Christ and the antichrist. This confrontation lies with the plans of Divine Providence. It is, therefore, in God’s Plan, and it must be a trial which the Church must take up, and face courageously … We must prepare ourselves to suffer great trials before long, such as will demand of us a disposition to give up even life, and a total dedication to Christ and for Christ. With your and my prayers, it is possible to mitigate the coming tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because only thus can the Church be effectually renewed. How many times has the renewal of the Church sprung from the shedding of blood? This time, too, it will not be otherwise. We must be strong and prepared and trust in Christ and in his Holy Mother and be very, very assiduous in praying the holy rosary.” -St. John Paul II (+ 2005)  

i just feel like ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  i really just feel like i'm going crazy more days than i feel like i'm on top of things. the other night, i knew it had been a long day when i found not one, but two rosaries stuffed in my pockets. i think i kept thinking that if i at least had these sacramentals on me, it had to help. i need to start saying a morning offering every morning. i have one taped on our napkin box that sits on the table, but it's covered in worksheets destined for the recycle bin. oh the worksheets.so, maybe say a prayer for me? and for those darn math facts and that ben gets to feeling better? but mostly, let's pray for our world.

Mary, Queen of Peace, Pray for us.

edited: last night a friend sent me this link. i didn't read it before my rant. maybe i should of. or maybe it was good to get it all out, but now i can keep reminding myself, "begin again". 

potato salad and blogging

tonight, in preparation for our big family 4th party tomorrow, i made a huge potato salad. i've never made one before-it seemed intimidating. so many different kinds/styles to choose from. and they always seemed like a lot of work. as i made it, i felt that, "well now i'm definitely a grown up" feeling that i feel sometimes about the oddest things. i think maybe i've talked about that before. well, it was a lot of work, although it also made a LOT of food, which is good for our big family.

as i worked in the kitchen with some great music going, i thought of several things i wanted to write about. and then it hit me- it has been so long since i've written, i've almost completely stopped writing blog posts in my head or developing ideas as i go about my days. the few that i have, i usually joke about with a friend, and i suppose that is enough of a release to let the idea go. i used to think of ideas all the time, scribbling them on scraps of paper or on the chalkboard wall. when i cleaned off my "desk" several months ago, i found a whole pile of ideas. i think i even started using a notebook one time. i read several really great short stories that a friend had written, and was really motivated to write, but then i think johnny got a tooth/stopped sleeping or some other life happens thing. writing is a lot of work and i am slow at it. i have also thought about pulling drafts out of the archives and just posting them as is with maybe a little back story or quick summation. i don't know.

but tonight, i wanted to write. the potato salad tucked in the fridge, i turned off the music, split a cheap, watery, delicious beer with tim and sat down. the bugs and the pops out the window on this unusually cool july night are too good not to enjoy just a little bit. instead of checking facebook first like i always do, and getting distracted and never making it over here, i ignored those 6 notifications and messages. i just came hear and typed, without thinking too much about it. then i went and stole the other half of the beer from tim.

all together now

because of timmy's work schedule, we rarely get to eat dinner together, except for his days off. man i miss him at dinner. i always took that major luxury for granted because growing up, we always ate dinner together as a family, and with tim's first couple jobs, or at least by the time we'd had ben, he was always home for dinner. and my boys eat sooooooooo dang slooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. like, i can nurse the baby, feed the baby non milk food, eat my own dinner, and clean up the kitchen, and they're still not done eating. there is a lot of coaching/reminding to eat your dinner. i usually try to stay at the table with them, because if i get up, they get up.

but tonight we were all together. john paul was in a good mood in his high chair, happily gobbling bites of avocado and smiling at the silliness of his family. i mostly sat back and watched it all.

the boys were telling jokes. oh, the joke telling. i think this a normal stage of kid development, but they're very much in the phase of telling jokes that rarely make sense and then laughing hysterically at each other (or themselves), only reinforcing their poor joke telling.

tim has this amusing-because-it's-so-bad habit of making up jokes that he formulates out loud, making the punchline either really obvious because you've heard the whole thought process or totally mind boggling that that's the punchline after all the puzzling and confusion. tonight it was, as i said, after much formulation, "what do you call a sleepy man who has eaten a spicy steak?....... a flamin' yawn." but to get to that punchline.... oh how i love that man. he also has a real gem about a "meanderin' orange".

this "joke" set max off on a whole series of joke/riddles. "what do you call a clock that doesn't tick?" ben figured him out from the start, " a tickless clock". "a barkless dog". "a bounceless ball". to which each time, max marveled, "man ben, you are so smart." with tim present to exchange amused looks, what would normally be kind of annoying after the 5th "joke" is endearing and cute.

tim then offered, "what do you call a girl turtle?........... shelly. " ben countered, "what do you call a female triceratops?................ HORNY!" tim and i both laughed heartily. then he said, "or hornTy if you want."

laughing at kids jokes is a dangerous thing. i often genuinely laugh at the completely nonsensical ones because they catch me off guard, but then that makes them think they make sense and they follow the same miscalculated joke equation over and over again, wondering why they are no longer garnering laughs.

i love my guys. i love them all so much easier when we are all together.

yah, i know this is pretty choppy, but you get what you get and.... i'm tryin'.