Playing dress-up at the library
Visit with the Ross family in Columbus
Lilah at Cosi
Seth at Cosi
Isaac at Cosi
Hunter at Cosi
Hunter and Isaac asleep at the hotel
All the kids asleep where the landed at the hotel
Lilah and Nina (my mom)
Movie time
The traditional morning pillow fight with Papa
Valentine's cookies (best recipe ever, btw, thanks Sarah!)We have had a busy couple of weeks. I feel like I am mostly just hanging on for the ride of life while I desperately try to keep up with the school routine, the house, the kids, Josh's schedule, and the list goes on and on. Unfortunately, I don't always keep up super successfully or with a "happy heart" (aka: a good attitude) as I put it for the kids. As most of our close friends know, we have had my cousin and her little guy living with us for the past couple of months. We love the time with family. Hunter is a two-year old firecracker of joy, fun, and cuteness. He is also a potty trainer. While this is a necessary stage of life for all humans, it is an unpleasant one for the adults. He's doing a pretty good job at the potty training, but it still makes life a bit more chaotic and stressful for the time being. Seth and Lilah have also discovered a new stage of life. It should be titled the "I just realized my ability to purposely annoy everyone around me and cause constant conflict with my siblings" stage. I feel like this is the worst issue to deal with because it just creates constant, deafening, and nerve-grating noise. There is ALWAYS a child screeching like a teradactyl while another one laughs insidiously. What do you do with that? Seriously, I'm asking. Because I have no idea and my nerves can't take it anymore. Isaac has come into a new stage of adorable sneakiness. He has gotten very sweet and lovable. I adore the cuddles. He has also developed a sugar addiction that I seem incapable of getting under control. If there is a sweet in the house, he knows where it is and is sophisticated enough to build a contraption large enough to climb within reaching length. I seriously cannot even go to the bathroom without returning to find the child sitting on a counter, cheeks stuffed full, and chocolaty drool dribbling down his chin. While I worry about this habit predisposing him to diabetes, I have to admit that he looks awfully cute in his sin of gluttony. I apparently need to get a lock box for anything of the sugar variety. Josh has had a really crazy schedule lately and he assures me it will not be getting better. Awesome. I think it might be better if he lied to me about that. I don't know, haven't decided. I discovered very early on in his medical career to set my expectations for him at an EXTREMELY low level. This way, I would never get disappointed. And when he arrives home at 8pm after a 16 hour work day it will feel like a blessing rather than an entire day of being a single mom. Sometimes it works, mostly it doesn't.
A few weeks ago we got a fantastically wonderful visit from my brother, Ben, and his family. My parents came up for the visit as well and treated us all to a waterpark hotel nearby. The kids had so much fun with the cousins and Josh and I loved getting some time with Ben and Sarah. We had a Superbowl party for Side By Side and have enjoyed lots of other fun activities over the past couple months. We had winter break for the kids' school last week so I took advantage of the time off to visit family and friends. (By 'Visist", I mean dump my kids off at my mom's house and take off to hang out with one of my BFs from high school.) The kids love time with nina and papa and I love time with other adults. Then my mom and I took the kids to a hotel for the night to swim and visit the Cosi Science Museum in Columbus. We also got to visit with some great Cbus friends, which we all loved. It was a busy and exhausting week, but fun. And the kids had a blast. This week we've been attempting to get back into our normal routine again. I have discovered that I am physically incapable of doing this without copious amounts of coffee. I took the kids to the library for playgroup yesterday and the library nazi lady made me throw away my coffee. I was unable to take it to the "coffee cafe" because I had to chase three children around the kids area of the library. I explained this to the woman who did not seem to care. I can only assume that she has never been a caregiver to 4 children under the age of 5 before or she surely would have made an exception. But alas, she did not. So I threw away my full cup of steaming hot coffee from McDonalds and promptly developed a splitting headache. I had to take two Excedrin to make it better. I suppose if I cannot drink my caffeine naturally, I have to supplement it artificially. But I have to say that I think libraries should put mini coffee cafes in the children's areas for the sleep-deprived moms who really truly need it. Because, believe me, if I could have taken my coffee to the "coffee cafe" to sip it peacefully while I read my new Francine Rivers book, rather than try to keep eyes on my two feet tall Isaac and Hunter in rows and rows of 3 foot tall bookshelves, I would have. Anyways, today is Friday and I plan to have a movie night with my kids with lots of cuddles and popcorn. All of that should make up for the stressful past few weeks. At least, we will do that after the kids clean up their toys in the playroom. Which they should have done 3 hours ago. I told Seth and Lilah to accomplish that task during Isaac's naptime. They did not and when I checked on them, more toys were out and ALL of the furniture was tipped upside down and the room ransacked. Apparently, a sneaky leprechaun is to blame (according to them). It's too bad... that naughty leprechaun just bumped their bedtime up by one hour. And that is the naughty leprechaun's gift to me. =)
