I don't know why I thought of this today, but I am glad I remembered it!  This blog is bringing back a lot of memories of things the kids have done, and hopefully I'll be able to keep it going.

We had gone out one night as a family to a Disney on Ice show.  It ended up being quite late by the time we got back home.  As we pulled into the driveway in our luxurious 12 passenger Chevy van (yes, like the guys who come to repair your siding drive) I started giving the sleepy kids instructions.  Straight inside!  Brush teeth!  Into jammies and into bed!  My husband and I each unhooked a baby from his car seat to bring inside, diaper change, clothing change and put into bed.  After this I did a bed check to make sure all the older kids had followed instructions.  This was when I noticed one child was missing.  Lauren was not in her bed.  Well, I figured, she must have just laid down on the couch. Nope.  No Lauren.  So I check all the couches, but don't find her.  I look in the other kids' rooms, and even under their blankets to see if she crawled in with someone else.  No sign of her.  I check all three levels of the house and the garage.  Nothing.  I am completely at a loss.  So, even though I was sure that all kids had gotten out of the car, I went back outside to see if she had gotten back in and fallen asleep.  But she was not there.  At this point, I am completely out of places to look.  As I start to walk back into my house I see her.  Stretched out in the grass, fast asleep.  She had gotten out of the car, laid down in the yard and gone to sleep.  And had been there about 30 minutes by the time I found her!

Here she is- asleep in various places :)  Sometimes a girl just needs a nap!

My kids have plain-Jane pallets.  We usually end up with something baked and something steamed for dinner each night.  Not a lot of seasoning, no pepper, sauces on the side, no processing... etc.  Casseroles are strictly verbotten (The horror! All that food mixed together!)

When I give them salad it is usually very basic stuff.  Tonight I had a take-out salad from Panera.  I was hurrying because I wanted to go to a parenting workshop at the school and I didn't have time to sort through the salad before dishing it out.  Oh well, I decided. They'll just have to figure it out.  I have about 7 or 8 loads of laundry on my kitchen table tonight (procrastination is a bad thing...) so I had the kids all lined up in a row at the island eating.  I am turned the other way, washing something in the sink.  My son asks me, "how long do we have to leave them there?"  I am totally baffled by this and need clarification.  I turn around to ask some follow-up questions and see all four of my older kids with their heads tilted back and the cucumber slices from their salads over their eyes!   I told them to ask their father because he was in charge, and I left.  Unfortunately, they didn't cover 'what to do when your children think their dinner is a spa treatment' at the parenting workshop.

Here they are at Christmas, 2004 (ages 2.5 and 5.5)

When Devin and Lauren were 3, and their older siblings were in school, I took them to Chuck E Cheese one morning.  It is really a great time to go, at 9 am.  No one is there.  The kids can run around like maniacs, and since you pretty much have the place to yourself, you can watch them easily.  Plus, they come home tired and take a nap!

My daughter Devin, from about birth to age 6 was a major handful.  I still anticipate picking her up from jail at least once during her teen age years.  Seriously.  So we are at CEC, and things are going fairly well.  Devin has gone up into the climbing thing and was wandering around up there.  I started talking to some other moms and I notice that the CEC workers were laughing and yelling at me, in Spanish.  I had no idea what was going on.  I turn around and Devin is coming down the slide.  Completely naked.  I chase her around the restaurant a few times thinking, where in that maze- that is suspended from the ceiling, am I going to find her clothes?  And what do I do?  Let her run around naked while I find them?  Drag her along with me, on a clothing safari hunt?  About this time, she runs into the mens' room.  I can hear her in there, singing an flushing toilets.  For about 5 minutes.  She finally comes out, and someone, mercifully, hands me her clothes.  

This was during her naked phase, when we could not keep clothes on her.  My photo album is filled with lovely shots of us decorating the Christmas tree, and Devin is naked.  The girls playing, and Devin is naked...  I have a lot of Devin stories....

(Notice in this picture:  her footie pajamas are turned around backwards, and zipped up the back. It was the only way we could keep them on her body)

I am planning on taking the youngest boys to CEC tomorrow morning.  Let's just hope history does not repeat itself!

It's been a while since I've posted.  I've been a little under the weather.  And a little too stuck in mom land.  You moms  know what I mean.

This is one of my favorite poems.  I am printing it out and hanging it on my daughter's wall.  Sometimes I don't have the words to tell her how amazing I think she is, so I'll just borrow someone else's words :) (Here she is at preschool graduation)

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nohing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do.  We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.  And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson

Of course, it isn't really a poem, and it may be a little much for a 9 year old to grasp entirely, but I think she'll get the important parts.