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30 seconds
Kevin just wanted thirty seconds. That’s not much. Seriously. It isn’t anything actually. 30 seconds. All this father of six asked for was thirty seconds of calm and relative quiet at our dinner table. (Is that what the soundtrack of your life sounds like too?) Anyway. 30 seconds. Kevin explains the rules in his official Dad Voice. No talking. (He allows Otto Fox an exemption based solely on his age. Solely on his age and his dashing good looks. Solely on his age, his dashing good looks and his irresistible charm.) No wiggling. No exploding. 30 seconds. That’s all. The kids blast him with a series of logical questions. “What…
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Hello Reality
5 days away from home. No meals to cook. No school to teach. I won’t lie – that was pretty great. But we knew it was a fairy tale. Not real. As we boarded our last flight to home, Kevin and I joked about crossing over from fantasy to reality. I knew it was coming. I just didn’t expect it to be such a crash landing. Approximately one hour (or the length of time it took to wash and dry one load of laundry) after arriving at our cozy home my husband and partner-in-parenting-this-mess-of-children-we-have-accumulated repacked his bag and headed north-ish with his co-workers for their annual staff retreat. That was okay.…
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you won’t find it here. (a point, that is.)
I guess this picture is just about perfect for this post. Piper Finn looks a little creepy. Otto Fox looks mostly miserable. (But they are both still sort of cute despite the weirdness and the displeasure.) I’d say that’s a good summation of my day. I should just stop right there and step away from the keyboard. But I can’t. Because that’s not how I roll. Today was a school day. But it was also a day that required a few quick morning errands. A few quick morning errands. Oh, how I laugh at the idea even now. Before the bulk of our real shopping was to begin, Bergen reminded…
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More Kids Than Adults: Lessons Learned
I haven’t been home for a full week. Seven days. Seven nights. It’s July. And in our framily July means one thing. The annual July Fourth party. A tradition at least twenty years in the making. And – oh boy – will I have a lot of things to say about this past week. Here’s the first . . . Lots of us slept at the farm house. The grand total was something like this – 5 adults. 9 kids. (And some days held more children drifting in and out.) The point is – the adults were outnumbered. The kids could have thrown a coup and forced us to feed…
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Perhaps it’s true.
It is possible that these kitchen tongs may have scooped a plastic orca whale out of our toilet recently.
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we do
Who buys a watermelon bigger than her one year old son? I do. Who sees that huge watermelon sitting on our butcher block and tells his children that he would like to cut that green guy open with a giant sword? Kevin does. Who takes their father’s word as truth and waits in anxious anticipation for Daddy to arrive at home? The Keiglets do. Who actually follows through and gets the sword? Kevin does. Wait – who actually owns a sword? Kevin does.
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And Then The Cousins Came
We have been a busy little family. (“Little” is a word left open to personal interpretation.) After swinging a lot and enjoying Beth and her beautiful girls for a too-short visit I received a crazy little e-mail. It said something about a surprise and the name of our town and it was sent to me from my cousin Sherry. (Sherry was the flower girl in my parent’s wedding. I was the flower girl in Sherry and Willy’s wedding. Their daughter was the flower girl in mine and Kevin’s wedding. And we have plenty-o-daughters to be the flower girl in her Amber’s wedding.) But back to the e-mail. I don’t think…
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This Game Needs A New Name
One of the most enjoyable aspects about raising kids has been the opportunity to pass on games and activities and tradtions that I played as a kid. And just this week I remembered a new one. Funeral. I think we made it up one long ago Virginia summer at the Wickstrum’s farm. It’s a simple game, really. Probably born of hot summer days and looking for excuses to not run around outside. One person pretends to be, er, dead. The, uh, dead person lies on the ground alone, arms crossed. After the deceased is lying still and his face is composed, the other players enter the room. The goal of…
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Next Up
And then it was my turn. To be sick, that is. I will spare you the gory details. But let me just throw a few adjectives your way. Early. Violent. Aggressive. Wretched. Debilitating.
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Now, THAT Was A Good Time
Friendship is a sheltering tree. -Samuel Coleridge There are just some people that you love to be around – aren’t there? People who make you laugh. Who make you feel good about being exactly who you are. Encouragers. People who are not naively optimistic but yet exude warmth and cheerfulness and hopefulness. I have a friend like that. And this past week she and her two adorable boys came to our house to hang out for a few days. We did a lot of silly little things (pretended our kitchen was an internet cafe and played on our laptops simultaneously). We seemed to eat a lot of food (like creating…
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What Do We Do?
(It’s another one of those this-picture-has-nothing-to-do-with-this-post-other-than-the-fact-that-this-is-my-blog-and-this-is-my-cute-kid. Apologies to all.) I just heard this line in a song . . . “If you feel it, it must be real.” That turns my stomach. This idea is absolutely pervasive. It has invaded everything. Our music. Our movies. Our commercials. Our attitudes. Our expectations. Our brains. Our hearts. Our actions. And I hate it. Because it is a lie. I’m not saying feelings always lie. I’m not saying feelings are wrong. Or sinful. Necessarily. I am saying – you cannot trust only your feelings. You cannot live from your feelings alone. You cannot base your actions on your feelings. It is a dangerous…
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today
This had been a busy little day. For a random Tuesday. (Actually, I believe it is officially Wednesday morning when I am writing this – but what difference does that make?) I took the chaps to a local library to watch a Christmas “play” about Holly and Bah Hum Bug. By Porkchop Productions. I’ve probably said enough already. Actually, it was all good. The trip to the library enabled me to pick out a few new books on CD (The Kite Rider (not to be confused with The Kite Runner) and Little Men) for car listening on the many December road trips (Ohio, Florida and all the states between here…
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The Greatest Obstacle
Do you want to know what my biggest parenting challenge is? Let me start but telling you what it is not. It is not determining which homeschool curriculum to use or even the decision whether or not to actually homeschool these children at all. It is not preparing daily breakfasts, lunches and dinners with variety and healthy eating habits in mind. It is not balancing the demands of six children, a messy house, overflowing laundry, marriage and friendships. It is not determining the best course of discipline appropriate for six different humans. No. It isn’t any of those things. My biggest parenting challenge is this . . . With five…
