this i know.

Here's the thing about my boy. He still lets me rock him before rest time each day. If I sing Jesus Loves Me he lasts a few seconds before climbing the ladder up to his bed. If I make up songs about poop, or songs about his stinky feet, he will stay there all day. So, I abandon Jesus Loves Me and he laughs and scrunches his eyes up and kisses me. I love having a boy.

do everything better???

Am I the only one that sometimes forgets to feed her baby?

I read this great quote a while back. Here it is:
“I’m a list keeper. I always have a to-do list…At one point I kept adding to the list, more and more items, more and more sweeping in their scope, until I added this line: DO EVERYTHING BETTER. It was, at the time, a pretty appropriate way to capture how I felt about my life and myself fairly often…why my life sometimes felt like I was running on a hamster wheel and why I searched the faces of calmer, more grounded women for a secret they all knew that I didn’t. This is how I got to that fragmented, brittle, lonely place: DO EVERYTHING BETTER...The grandest seduction of all is the myth that DOING EVERYTHING BETTER gets us where we want to be. It gets us somewhere, certainly, but not anywhere worth being.”
― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet

I return to this little neglected space, shaking off the feeling that I should be better at blogging consistently, that I should do more crafts (that was for you, bff), that I should exercise before the sun rises, that I should have a PLAN, a 401K and equity (that was for you, Scoobs).

The truth is, this December I played with my kids. I baked brownies and the best flourless chocolate cake imaginable, I read a ton of Junie B. Jones with Claire, I went to the park every Thursday afternoon with a dear friend, I wrapped gifts and did an advent calendar and exercised with moderate regularity and made giant huge batches of playdoh that smells like peppermint. It has been a good month. DO EVERYTHING BETTER is a lie. We have to choose. I choose to return to this space because I like to write, even if no one is reading.

all over town.

We are no longer the family with a school bus. It was fun while it lasted. And making fun of Nate for buying it was a fun perk too. The school bus is on its way to the bay area to enjoy a new life with a very excited and nervous young man. The kids asked me why we were selling it. I said, as I always tell them, that it was time. That we'd enjoyed the bus and that now it was time for a new adventure. I also mentioned that maybe next we'll get a submarine. Their eyes lit up. "Really? What's a submarine?"
I love that we live a life full of possibility and adventure. Even if I am usually the one who frowns on strange purchases like short buses. Thanks, Nater for not being ordinary. I love you.

better now.

The new church has lollipops. Sunday was rough, but a little sweetness seemed to help.

Stellar Parenting Notes; When moving your kids ages 3 and 5 to a new church, perhaps don't expect them to be excited about singing Christmas carols on stage. Also, make sure they know where you are sitting in the audience.

grace in la hacienda.

The other night we ventured to a Mexican restaurant. You know the kind of place- not exactly a date spot, but perfect for families like ours. Plenty of chips and salsa and menus that come with crayons for the kids. They seated us in the back corner. The man in the next booth smiled as he watched us settle in. "We were hoping you would sit next to us," he said, with sincerity.

"Yeah right," I smiled back.

We proceeded to fulfill every single cliche of a family with young kids. Water was spilled. Kids cried. Kids made up. Trips to the potty. Crayons were exchanged. Refried beans were flung. And I watched as this couple watched us. Their kids were grown, she said. And I could tell that she would trade places with me in a heartbeat, to have one more messy, chaotic family meal when her kids were small.

And I can't get the image of that couple out of my mind. We're deep in the season where the best thing I can imagine is an uninterrupted afternoon alone. On the days when I long for quiet, let me remember them.