(Or at Least Without Any Particularly Wordy and/or Long-winded Comments) So Thursdays are my sort-of-mostly day-off-from-the-Internet. Sorry, Internet! I love you, but sometimes I really just want to stab you in the necktubes with a pencil. A few hours apart is good for both of us. All four of us, actually, if you count my Paypal account and Etsy habit. Anyway. I am just hopping online real quick to post more photos. Because that's all I do now, it seems. Photos! Look at some photos! I am the blogging equivalent to that crazy lady on the bus with a stack of wallet-sized photos from her monthly visits to the Sears Portrait Studio with her cat. AND LOOK! IN THIS ONE I DRESSED MR. BOOFYKINS UP LIKE A MONKEY! (See? I bet you thought I was just kidding with the Mr. Boofykins analogy. HOW WRONG YOU WERE.) (Honestly. It's getting hard to resist the urge to stick crayons in between those toes. Or a spork. I...don't know exactly why I have those particular urges, but I totally kind of do.) (Awesome playmat/angry despot loungepad from Peppermint Pinwheels, BTW.) And...that about brings you up to speed. Woke up, skipped shower, dropped Noah... Read more →

WHAT?! I demand a recount. Not cool, relentless forward march of time. Not cool. *** Dear Baby Ike, You had your first real bath last night. Your belly button took its sweet old time healing up, no thanks to an assist from Noah, who accidentally knocked the umbilical stump off while trying to hug you, five-year-old cage-fighter style. (Your daddy then put the stump on the kitchen counter. I made him throw it out. I may lean toward the obsessive when it comes to documenting ya'll's childhoods, but sweet merciful crap, I am not scrapbooking anybody's freaking umbilical stump.) Noah was thoroughly horrified, since we'd put the fear of God into him and Ezra about the stump, and the not touching of the stump, and for days afterward would tearfully ask me if he'd ruined your belly button. I think I have finally assured him that your belly button is just fine, but if you are ever looking for good prank-related ammunition to use against your big brothers, I would totally try like, smearing your belly button with Nickelodeon slime and being all, OMG NOAH WHAT HAVE YOU DONNNNE? Just a suggestion. I was the youngest of seven, you know.... Read more →

We spent the weekend -- the entire weekend, for reasons I cannot remember -- going places and doing things with and for the kids. All three of 'em. SPOILER ALERT: Going places and doing things sucks. On Friday we hauled everyone to the movie theater for Cars 2. (The boys loved it. LOVED IT! And I did not completely hate it! And the screaming baby in the theater did not belong to me! A victory all around, except for the part where we got out the door so incredibly late that popcorn had to count as everyone's dinner.) On Sunday we went to the pool. (I wore a bikini! That nobody saw, because I did not take the maternity dress I wore as a cover-up off for even a single minute. I sat in the shade and held the baby for a secondary layer of postpartum-belly-camouflage.) And wedged in between: Saturday. Oh, my heavenly lord. On Saturday we trekked into DC proper for a big barbecue battle-slash-street-festival. I hoped to eat some decent ribs and have a beer or two; I spent the entire afternoon pushing a double stroller around the kiddie section of the event, which was far, far... Read more →

This post is sponsored by Samsung. But written by me. Hooray for sponsors! Polite-yet-bored golf claps for me. So I'm sure you've all heard about the "push present" thing, right? The completely-invented-by-jewelry-companies idea that you, as a childbearing female, deserve some kind of butt-expensive bling or present from your partner in the getting knocked-up process? And while I'm being all sarcastic and seemingly above-it-all here, you should be aware I am also totally the recipient of two previous sparkly gifts from my husband, and did not complain AT ALL about him caving to some silly fake tradition, because LOOK AT HOW PRETTY? Anyway. Push Presents. That. Though I call them my "Major (Adominal Surgery) Awards." And I kinda felt that by baby number three, we were pretty much over the whole idea. Jason never mentioned it, and after writing the checks for Noah's summer camp and Ezra's preschool deposit I figured we'd already spent enough money on the invaluable gift of FREE TIME FOR MOMMY. (Plus I accidentally sort-of maybe temporarily or possibly permanently I don't want to talk about it lost the ring Jason got me after Ezra's birth. I know! I can't even. Am an idiot. This Is... Read more →

There's nothing quite like those moments -- those rare public moments when the child you've spent years of your life raising as a kind, empathetic and polite human being opens his mouth...and says the most impulsive, selfish and socially tone-deaf thing he could possibly come up with. In front of God, everybody and at least 50 other adults with video cameras. So I left a little anecdote out of my entry about Noah's belt test. Because...well, it wasn't exactly the sort of story I felt deserved to be preserved for posterity. At least...not at first. At first it was one of those "let's forget THAT ever happened" stories. So Noah was waiting for his turn to break his board. It's the last task of the test, the big moment that signals your successful graduation to the next belt level, the part where everybody claps and cheers for you, and not to mention, is completely fucking awesome, because you get to break a damn board with your fist. But the little girl ahead of Noah was not getting that completely awesome moment, because she could not break her board, no matter how many times she tried. The instructor switched boards, had... Read more →

i have gotten absolutely nothing done today. i mean, besides keeping three children alive and clothed and mostly fed (APPLESAUCE AND AMERICAN CHEESE SLICES ARE TOTALLY A REAL LUNCH, WHAT?) and making sure nobody's eyeballs got poked out. i did scrub pee off a chair in the dining room and then brushed some vomit out of my hair. you can hardly see either now. (not sure about the smells, though.) oh, and i folded some diapers. and put some clothes in the dryer. i think. did i? i might have hallucinated that last part. anyway. point is: it's pure totally-outnumbered survival mode over here, plus lots and lots of wonderpets. and it's all this one's fault, pretty much. (s'okay though. am granting him a pass on account of noshable cheeks.) Read more →

One... Two... Three... Happy birthday, Jason! I would say you've done pretty good so far. Excellent life's work, these three. So make a wish! But not for sleep. Because...no. Read more →

SOMETHING HORRIBLE HAS HAPPENED, Y'ALL. My hospital cup -- the new one, the one I spent close to nine months dreaming of and plotting over, the one I looked forward to stealing like nothing else in the room save for those sexy mesh granny panties -- mysteriously cracked overnight in a good three different places, then flooded the top drawer of my nightstand and NOW I DON'T HAVE A SECOND SPARE HOSPITAL CUP ANYMORE, AFTER ALL THAT I WENT THROUGH JUST TO SCORE A FREE SECOND SPARE HOSPITAL CUP IN THE FIRST PLACE. NOW what am I supposed to do? Have another whole baby just to get another cup? I mean, they are such great cups, you guys. 30-ounce capacity! With a lid and a straw and a handle! You'd get irrationally attached to this cup too, I bet. And now it's useless, because I guess I put too many ice cubes in it, or something. So the baby is officially my only hospital souvenir left, besides the aforementioned mesh panties, two dozen giant sanitary pads, some waterproof bed-pad thing, one plastic squirt bottle, a pack-and-a-half of newborn diapers, three things of wipes, a six-pack of formula, one nasal aspirator... Read more →

On Friday night, Pre-Third-Baby Anxiety-Inducing Imaginary Scenario #473 occurred: Alternately dealing with a newborn baby's usual night-wakings AND those of a sick, cold-ish toddler. Ezra came down with an extra-pathetic case of the sniffles, then added a seal-like is that the croup or not the croup? cough, and proceeded to appear -- all moist-faced and miserable, his blankies in hand -- at our bedside multiple times throughout the night and early morning hours. Usually either immediately AFTER I'd finished nursing Ike and gotten him newly settled back down to sleep, or right at the EXACT second we were treated to the thunderous sound of a freshly filled diaper. And so, one of us would shuffle off to clumsily fumble with a diaper change while the other squinted at bottles in the medicine cabinet, debating whether to continue with the homeopathic honey-based bullshit or try to do some dosage math for the "real" stuff, all while praying that OH DEAR LORD, please please please don't let Noah wake up right now and like, vomit all over his bed to complete the unholy trifecta of late-night kid-related grossness. I cannot tell you how much I dreaded this scenario. It very near consumed... Read more →

I just really miss the phone call, you know? Read more →