Needed: Bathing and Sleeping

She has robbed me of two and a half hours of prime sleeping time.
Her nose is running incessantly and her diaper looks suspicious.
She refuses breakfast but eats things off the floor and rips apart my magazine.
With her oversized t-shirt that stood in for pj's last night and her desperate need for a bath, she couldn't look more like the stereotypical trailer park baby.

She's pretty much perfect. 

Every ounce of energy that she saps from my tired mom body is replaced with one squeeze of her little arms around my neck.
Her sparkly eyes and takes-up-her-whole-face-grin make me ask for her snotty kisses over and over.

I really love my baby.

Her little big sister is pretty much perfect too.
And so are the school kids... but they were out the door before my camera woke up.




Is it wrong of me to stereotype trailer parks?

Milkacalypse and Curtains

Today feels like a week.  On Monday, (scarcely two weeks ago by my calculations) I began scribbling on a fresh page of my book of lists, optimistically titling it "Goals For This Week."  I put too many words under those first four. 
The Man of the House thinks that I need to lower my expectations.  He doesn't read very many Mommy Blogs.  I think I am about to give them up too, although I tell myself that I just read them to ridicule the preposterous glaze of perfection that coats everything in them.  Was I more at peace with piles of laundry and unfinished projects before I read these {mostly Mormon} SAHMs?
Anyway, my expectations are about to experience a decrease in number.  Tomorrow morning I'm going to slash through my "Goals" and pare things down to necessities.
Problem: in the moment, everything feels like a necessity.  What can I cut?
Shop for Groceries. 
I made it half-way through this errand today when an emergency halted my gathering at half-cart full.  We will run out of milk tomorrow and the end of the world may just arrive.  Milkacalypse.
Move the Little Girls into their New Bedroom. 
Another chore that is started, but not completed.  Will the chaos of belongings littering our upstairs hall kill us before the Household Dairy Shortage?
Various Preparations for my Youngest Sister-In-Law's Bridal Shower. 
I cannot let go of these 4 or 5 combined tasks.  I cannot let people outside our house know what an unachiever I am.  If 50+ female friends and relatives show up at the shower location on Saturday and find the tables undecorated, they may just keep their gifts.
Sewing curtains.
Yep. I can let go of that.  Since I'm pretty sure that curtains are an annoyance of questionable necessity.  Plus there's the whole not-really-moved-into-their-new-bedroom thing that's going for me.  Although the fabric I've picked out is pretty much perfect.
Finish Baby Gift for new Nephew.
Oh pook.
See? This is why I don't like slashing and paring down.  I want to do this. 
I want to do it all.  I want to be just like the glossy Mommy Blogs in their unachievableness.

Except I'm not Mormon.

I am very much ok with that, so I guess I'll be ok with slashing my list.
Maybe the Man of the House is on to something.

Sickie Poo

I've heard bad things about strep throat before.
But I never realized that it could take this bit of sunshine...

And transform it into this sad little urchin.

It has been a week of many cuddles.
And much whining.
And coaxing.
It will be better soon, right?  I miss my little girl with the quick and ready smile.  I miss her willing toddler-sized appetite.  I am trying to appreciate these moments of extra-neediness, but we're both more than bit worn out.

We Break for Spring

Spring Break was last week. 
We were busy.
We played with friends.

Ok... so this picture was from N.Belle's class Easter party - the day before Spring Break. Apparently, I didn't take any pictures of the four play dates we actually had at home!

We built ramshackle structures with scraps found in the barn.

 We read a lot of books. In really odd settings. Odd, ramshackle settings.

We put on concerts.

We cooked a little here and there. But not with this strange assortment of ingredients WBeans set out when she wanted to help Mommy make dinner.

We put on pretty new dresses and went to church.

Only some of us did that. A few of our family were sick. Sad {Easter} day!

We did not go anywhere, but we never had one of those "I'm bored and don't know what to do with myself" days.  It was nice.  We were not really ready to go back to school yesterday.

But we did.

And by "We" I of course do not mean "me."

Questions

So I don't really have a subject today. 

I found these pretty faces around my house and I thought I'd share them.

How important is cropping and the "rule of thirds"?
I mean, for the average, everyday mother-of-five.
You know, that lady who takes hundreds of pictures and doesn't generally make prints of them?

And what about focus?  Is it a better picture when the background is blurry or would you rather see for thousands of yards beyond your subject?

Do any of these photographic details really matter?
I mean, I am taking pictures of their childhood.  Some of us people don't have photographic evidence of our their early years.  Some of us don't have any evidence at all of our early years.

Sorry.
That's another post.

I just can't decide if it matters to me or not.
I cannot do everything perfectly.
I am not sure if I can do anything perfectly.


Unless it can be done in 5 minutes or less.

Bouncing Back in Time (or just to Michigan)

I went with my Son the 3rd Grade Student on a field trip this week.
We rode in the very back of the bus.

I'm still a little sore from the bouncing.
I tried to take his picture, but the flying out of the seat thing kind of messed up the focus.  He's cute anyway.

His class was visiting their Amish pen pals at a school about an hour and a century away.
The Amish scholars in their plain dress and bonnets, squared-off hair cuts and suspenders were very cute.  But they don't want their picture taken. I knew that.  I didn't ask about the horse outside.  I just risked it.

I also didn't ask before I took pictures of their baked goods.  Since I bought some of these soft loaves at the Amish bakery (you should see the oven!), I didn't think it would be a big deal.

I brought the bread back to the future and my modern-ish family enjoyed it.
The End.

Mother-Daughter Shopping

I'm taking a short break from my Tetris game to write this. 

Petticoat Junction, anyone?

This week my Kindergarten Girl, N-Belle had a couple of days off school so her teacher could help with the event formerly known as Kindergarten Round-Up.  [I think they changed the name to avoid hot branding irons and fancy rope tricks.]
Anyway. In celebration of a free day, I promised her a girly shopping trip. There was no better time,  I realized during Sunday Get-Ready-For-Church-No-You-Cannot-Wear-That-Hold-Still-While-I-Comb-Your-Hair-I-Told-You-What-Shoes-To-Wear-Well-I-Didn't-Wear-Them-Where-Did-You-Take-Them-Off-Did-You-Wash-Your-Face-No-Babies-Don't-Go-To-Church-Well-Of-Course-She-Does-Because-She's-Your-Sister-Not-A-Doll-I-Told-You-Not-That-Dress-Because-I'm-Your-Mother Morning that she has very few long enough or unstained enough garments left.  The girl is leggier than a six year old should be and very - how shall I say this  - Clumsy.  She has older brothers too, so that means that she has to be just a bit of a tomboy sometimes.

My daughter is the one in the tree. Her cousins stayed demurely on the ground. Maybe the tree climbing could explain the state of her wardrobe.

 

So we went shopping, the four of us: Daughters aged 6.5, 3-going-on-12, and Just-One-Year, + Me the Mom.

If you've never experienced little girls trying on spring dresses in a fitting room your life is missing something.  I'm sorry, but it just is.  Each twirly skirt brought exclamations of sheer delight and an over-abundance of fond gazes into the over-abundance of mirrors (where did they learn the tuck-your-chin-lift-your-brows look?).  Each and every item was a perfect fit even if it wasn't.  Matchy-Matching with each other was an absolute must.  Little GBaby contentedly sat amidst discarded ruffles and flounces and occasionally gave an imitating squeal while her sisters preened and changed.  Eventually I had to take an armful of "don't quite fit" to the salesperson because if I left them in the little closet of a room with the girls they would have talked me into each and every item.

I loved the first store.

At the second store, the wandering 3 year old and her constant conversations with the headless mannequins began to wear my patience as thin as the Easter cardigans. Still, the trying-on-clothes antics made me smile.

By the time we reached the third store I skipped the fitting rooms and just stood my daughter by the racks of pastel garments and held one or two up against her.  It was past lunch time and we were all hungry.

WBean wanted to eat in Target (say what?) but since it was N-Belle's day off she got to choose the restaurant.  She picked "that Waffle place."  You know, because I'd only made them pancakes from scratch for breakfast.  Oh well. That Waffle place has pretty good coffee. 

After our late lunch, we were nearly out of time.  We hit up a discount grocery store (not nearly as much fun as our other stops) and headed home with our purchases.  Woo-hoo. Three clothing stores in one day.  Alone, that's not much of an accomplishment; accompanied by small children, it is satisfactory. 

Here's the funny thing about our procurements: I knowingly bought a dress two sizes too small for my be-legged one, because we she so desperately wanted to match her little sisters.

Don't ask me about WBean's pose here... I'm just not sure about that girl sometimes.

I unknowingly bought a dress too large for GBaby. But I think that is going to be normal procedure until she decides to grow.

She either didn't like looking like a jail bird standing in a line up, or the fact that her dress could do without the bottom two stripes.  Something was upsetting poor little GBaby.  She got over it.