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Mudlicious
Funny story. It had been raining all day and the sun didn’t come out until after dinner. With both mom and kids anxious for some time spent outdoors, I went against my better judgement and answered in the affirmative when four small faces requested permission to play outside. Yes, four. I even let the little Willow join her siblings for some big time play time. What with all the torrential downpours all day, it wasn’t exactly their fault that the most exciting adventures awaiting outside were discovered at the bottom of a mud puddle. I mean, they are children after all. I let the play go on as long as…
Keep Reading . . .
weekend ramble (the stillest of weekends)
Parenting Teens: Say Yes
Guatemala: Day One
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Maybe
So maybe I just didn’t keep up with laundry as well as I should have this week. And so maybe Piper Finnian is wearing the pajamas that she wore last night, because they were conveniently lying beside her bed where I conveniently dropped them (I mean wisely placed them) this morning. And so maybe Bergen just went to bed wearing swim trunks and a t-shirt. And maybe Mosely went to bed wearing Bergen’s Batman underoos, Bergen’s almost-too-small-for-her running pants and Bergen’s little boy white undershirt. And so maybe London is sporting a more classic pair of Bergen’s underwear – the whitey-tighties. Maybe tomorrow I’ll do some laundry. Or maybe not.…
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Tears, Glorious Tears
At this house, it seems as if someone is always crying. Little Mister Wilder cries when he is hungry. And he cries when he can’t manage to flip his thumb in the correct direction and maintain its position in his own minuscule mouth. He cries at four a.m. and he cries around seven thirty as well. If his diaper change is taking too long, tears ensue. When the food that should stay in his stomach flows out of his mouth and around his head, he cries about that as well. For Piper the tears are born of genuine frustration with her current lot in life. She wants to go outside…
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Tricked!
Doesn’t this maple syrup look like a healthier, better for you, version of syrup? I mean, look – there are woods in the drawing on the label and maple syrup comes from trees – right? And this company has been making this sticky stuff since 1889. Shouldn’t that imply quality? Yeah, at least that’s what I thought when I saw it on the shelf at my local grocery store. At breakfast I was reading the back label, something I should have done at the store I guess, and realized that it was just normal old-full-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup syrup. Shucks! I was tricked by a nice label.
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Lacey-isms
We all have those phrases . . . those pithy sayings that we always fall back on. Some are ridiculous, some are funny and some we just cannot believe we are saying, even as we hear them spewing from our lips. Lately, it seems as if I hear them from my children’s lips as well. After giving the kids a short to-do list, London and Mosely came to me, complaining of the current working conditions. “Mom,” London began, “Mosely wants me to carry the dishes over from the table but I told her she has to do it because I am already in the middle of trying to do two…
Keep Reading . . .
mid-week rambling.
Five Finds Friday (a song & a rug & senior photos)
The Right Word.
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In Case You Were Wondering
This is Piper. Someone, we can only assume it was a person under four feet tall, gave this not-yet-two-year-old an open box of Cheerios to look at during breakfast. I had to use the restroom during our breakfast. Silly me. Why can’t I just plan a little better? (And why does every bad/mischievous/injurious/disobedient/dangerous event occur while I am trying to spend two and a half minutes using the restroom anyway?!) I returned just in time to hear the sound of Cheerios cascading from the box to the table, to the floor, to the tiny space between the table leaf. Before I could clean up the mayhem, I heard Otto Fox…
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Superman
Before Otto Fox Wilder was born, the creation of his name was causing quite a controversy in our house. The little guy has had so many names tossed around as “the one” that everyone lost track of which name we liked best at any given moment. (Oliver, Oscar, Oz, Stryder, Striker, Ryder, Ollie, Wyatt, Truett, Greenleaf . . . ) Early on, Bergen tried to keep the peace by suggesting the perfect name – Superman. And Bergen has really been the only consistent one – always calling him Superman. Two days ago, Otto tried to prove that he was indeed worthy of his superhero nickname. I placed him down for…
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The Magic’s in the Music . . . .
(Photo disclaimer – another photo that has very little to do with the post. But it’s Piper and that little unnecssary, but adorable, ponytail. Well, calling that sprig a “ponytail” is a stretch, I know!) When Bergen Hawkeye was a baby I finally had a good idea to help him differentiate between day time naps and night time sleep. Mosely was dependent on a blanket and that was really a bad idea because blankets can be lost (she has lost two) and blankets can be forgotten on road trips. And lost blankets add up to sleepless nights for Mosely and everyone else within earshot. So with Bergen I wanted to…
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Come on, London!
So I was sweeping the kitchen floor. Underneath the table I spotted a container of sour cream with no lid and a spoon sitting in it. I picked up the container, knowing it would be empty when I looked inside. It was. I don’t know a lot about a lot of things, but I know a lot about my kids. And I didn’t even have to really waste brain power to know exactly why an empty sour cream container was underneath our kitchen table. I called London from wherever she was playing. “London, did you take this sour cream container and sit underneath the table and eat the rest of…
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I’m Not Making This Up
Today . . . . . Piper wore a tiny, tiny ponytail in her hair – Pebbles-style. It was unnecessary. But it was cute. Bergen came running into the house this morning carrying a dead bird. “Hey, Mom – I found a dead bird,” he announced. This was also unnecessary. And not cute. Riley had to receive five shots at the public health department for her upcoming adventure to Kenya. The facility was ugly, windowless and depressing. The nurse acted as if the two of us had single-handedly, purposefully set out to ruin her day. I hope if our government ever decides to choose universal health care they can figure…
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Greener Ideas
I’m not a radical environmentalist – whatever that is – but I have been trying to trade in some of my earth-harming habits for some greener choices for a few years now. For me, it really comes down to what I believe about God more than what I believe about the earth. To make it simple – God made the earth. He made people and told those people to take care of the earth. So here I am. And if I am doing a less than stellar job of stewardship, than I am basically saying I am not concerned with the gift and responsibility God placed on my head. There…
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Be Still
For the first few days of his life, Otto Fox Wilder spit up what looked like the entire contents of his tiny meal at every nursing. At his first doctor’s appointment at only four days old, he had already lost a substantial amount of weight. It seemed as if the little man just couldn’t keep his food in his new tummy. For the next two days I tried a new tactic. When he nursed, I kept him sitting in an upright position. After each feeding Riley or Kevin or I would hold him upright for twenty to thirty minutes following nursing. We figured maybe gravity just needed to work its…
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My To-Do List
I like lists. (And the photo of Mosely has nothing to do with that. I just think everyone should look at my kids more often. ) As a kid I made loads of lists. Lists of my favorite names (I was collecting them even back then.) Lists of my favorite books. Lists of places I liked to eat, places I wanted to visit, stuff I liked to collect. I had lists of my stuffed animals’ names and everyone I could remember having ever met. (Seriously.) I typed my lists out on my cool Smith Corona typewriter. I loved that little piece of technology. All this to say, it is no…
