So it's pretty clear to me that if I want to keep going with the Dinner in Real Life-type posts (in which I give y'all a THRILLING 1,000+ WORD RUNDOWN on what we fucking ate for dinner, because you care and you care deeply) I really need to remember to take some goddamn photos before all the food disappears into our face holes. Photographing the recipes for blogging usually occurs to me the day after, while I'm reheating the leftovers in the microwave, and I am sorry, but making leftovers look like anything other than a choppy mess of brownish things is way beyond my modest skills. Look at this two-day old pasta! It is vaguely reminiscent of the idea of al dente! Bon appetit! Or I decide to document the preparation steps and...well, this happens: Remember the mini chicken and broccoli pot pies? I make those about once a week, because they are easy and the kids love them and FINE, I love them because it sort of feels like I'm eating Hostess pies for dinner. HOWEVER: No, I am not rolling out the world's biggest quadruple batch there; that's what happens when I plunge face first into a... Read more →

Yesterday, Ezra went on a field trip with his YMCA camp. He had a ton of fun — even the camp director came over to comment on Ezra's super off-the-charts level of enthusiasm for the day's activities — however, I have honestly no idea where he went or what he did. According to the thing they sent home (you know, the thing, the scrunched-up paper thing you find in the bottom of your child's backback, underneath a soggy towel and dirty swimsuit, the thing that was likely due back with a signature and $2 that morning, uh, whoops), the field trip was to something called THINGAMAJIG. Which is a very helpful and descriptive title, obviously. THINGAMAJIG seemed to be something that we were already supposed to be familiar with, as this was the 19th annual THINGAMAJIG, a grand and noble YMCA of Metropolitan Washington tradition, something we probably already had marked down in our calendars, because THINGAMAJIG. Anyway, THINGAMAJIG is apparently an annual "Invention Convention" aimed at getting kids involved in STEM, and...here, I Googled it and found the website. You now know as much as me. You are now an Advanced THINGAMAJIGGER. Congratulations. Honestly most of my confusion stemmed... Read more →

Okay, look. Nick Jr. is on right now. Nick Jr. has maybe been on for awhile now. Maybe. Possibly. I don't know my life. I put Nick Jr. on for Ike so I could shower, write a blog post and answer some emails. (My favorite being the one someone [HI LISA] sent me at 3 a.m. to ask about getting stains off a microfiber couch and repeatedly used the phrase "COUCH PENIS." Because RELEVANT. God, I love you people.) I put Nick Jr. on because attempts to let him free range around the house had already resulted in a pants-removal incident that hereforeafter shall be referred to as COUCH POOP. Please don't email me about it. Noah is also here, and also watching Nick Jr. He is watching Nick Jr. with a surprising amount of intensity, given that he is now almost 8 years old and should probably know by now that nobody ever dies on Little Bear. At least not outside of Sweeps. And yet he just barrelled into my office to shriek at top volume that someone named Tonny (?) has lost his drum and it's ALMOST CHIME TIME (?), Mom! If he can't find his drum then... Read more →

I still have one strong hold on babyhood: The crib. Ike still sleeps in the crib. Our pediatrician expressed surprise (as did some of you, in the comments on this post) that he hadn't climbed out yet, especially as our two-year appointment wore on and she witnessed his considerable climbing and furniture-scaling skills. I don't know. I'm sure he could if he tried. I once saw him get a leg up and a foot hooked over the railing. I told him to stop that. He listened. I think he just...likes the crib. Or he hasn't yet realized there might be other options. He'll play on his brothers' beds but shows no interest in staying there at bedtime. (Even though some nights the bottom bunk remains sneakily unoccupied.) I did the math the other day (TRANSLATION: I looked shit up in my blog archives) and realized that Ezra was about two months older than Ike is now when we went cold turkey from the crib to his bunk bed, and Noah was only two WEEKS older when he made the move to a toddler bed. That toddler bed got accidentally maliciously destroyed when we put it up in the attic and... Read more →

(I would like to apologize in advance for how disjointed and all over the place the following entry is. I kept getting distracted so it was written in about 15 different stops and starts and "wait, what was I talking abouts?") (This is all Kate Middleton's fault, OBVIOUSLY.) Ike had one of those awesome little toddler language explosions on Friday. I mean, he literally woke up Friday morning and started stringing all sorts of new words together. Or maybe the words weren't new, but the fact that they sounded like actual words and not like, AGGLE GUH FUFFFUFF? MUH HUBLA? was pretty exciting. (Especially because prior to Friday, his language development was semi-officially starting to lag for a two year old. I had one speech-delayed toddler and one who spoke in paragraphs. Ike's so far managing to skate right through the middle at a completely different pace, just to prove to me that I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ANYTHING.) "I'm full," Ike suddenly said, 10 minutes into a nice lunch out with me and Noah. "Go home." (Ezra was enjoying his final day of Superhero camp at the YMCA [*bites knuckles*] and we'd just gotten Noah his first big-kid, non-shaggy-bowl haircut.... Read more →

Are we still judging mommybloggers for posting photos of their kids crying and/or pissed off and/or covered in jam/unidentified schmutz? Probably. So go ahead and put on your best judgeypants because I will never apologize for how much I love this photo: OH I AM SO SORRY, CHILD OF MINE, CHILD WHO IS INEXPLICABLY HALF AWAKE AND STANDING UP AT MIDNIGHT AND APPEARS TO BE COMPLAINING ABOUT ABSOLUTELY NOTHING EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT YOU ARE STANDING UP? IS THE FLASH BOTHERING YOU? DO YOU FIND THAT ANNOYING? If it makes you feel any better, I showed it to Ike this morning and he said, "Baby! Baby saaaaad." And then he laughed and laughed. Because we're both assholes. (Though hey, at least his hair still looks cute in that photo.) (And I would know, as I take approximately four dozen pictures of the back of his head every day in a futile attempt to fully capture its pettable, haywire majesty.) Read more →

Back when I thought we "needed" to move, a bigger backyard was probably on the top of my list of "reasons." You know, for the kids. So they'd have room. To play. (Because....clearly. They don't have that. At all.) Our backyard isn't perfect. It's on the larger size for our townhouse community but still not what I considered ideal for three growing children, or for entertaining more than like, two additional people. We're not allowed to have swingsets or playsets that are taller than the fence. The drainage isn't great so the grass is perpetually dead on that one side and a couple hours in the sprinkler means the whole yard is vaguely swampy for the next two days. The soil is crap. Our gardening options are limited to what we can grow in containers on the deck. Blah blah, whine whine, nit, pick. I remember my childhood backyard being huge. I remember endless stretches of grass and a tree swing and a secret fort in a wide hedge of bushes and having room for a swingset AND a slip-n-slide AND a sandbox AND endless adventures. I wanted something like that, for them. (Though I fully admit I was being... Read more →

It was a rough weekend, no? That wasn't just me? I feel like we need a redo. Or a complete planetary realignment. And some extra servings of the good stuff, and none of the other stuff. And by good stuff I mean this: And lots of this: And of course, finally, this: Okay. I'm feeling better now. Let's do this thang, Week. You are no match for those eyeballs. Read more →

And on the other side of the workplace universe, today I am working from home, and it's one of those days where the "home" part is completely overwhelming the "working" part. Noah is at camp, but the other two are home with me and only me. It's raining. Ezra and Ike are currently staging multiple picnic/restaurant/grocery store scenarios, so about every 10 seconds somebody is graciously attempting to serve me a can of soup or a lettuce leaf or some invisible juice. My in-laws are driving in later (and staying in this very room) so I will need to clean up all this up at some point. The coffee pot is upstairs in the kitchen and I should really go pour a cup to jolt my brain but oh yes, Ike, a plastic cup with a wooden lemon inside it will do just as well, but oh scratch that, Ike just dared add a slice of pie to the picnic spread and Ezra is now screaming that NO. NO PIE. HE'S RUINING MY PICNIC. Aaaand he just fled the room and went upstairs. Maybe he can get me that coffee. Believe it or not, I actually did this on purpose.... Read more →

Yesterday, I got up early, got dressed (as in actual clothing, not workout clothing) (haaaaaaa "workout"), did mah hairs and face, and drove to an office. The office? My office? I still don't know what to call it. I've been consulting for this company for well over a year now but have shown up live and in person maybe a dozen times, if that. I still have to retrieve a restroom key from the reception area, and I still get kind of a sweaty panic about using it because the lock is jacked, and although I think I've figured out the right amount of twist-jiggling required to open the stupid door, it still takes me a full minute to re-learn the trick and it's a terribly stressful minute that I spend terrified that I will 1) pee myself or 2) be seen by another human being while looking like an idiot who CAN'T OPEN A DOOR. In other words, I don't think I've earned the right to call it "my" office yet. I am still a telecommuting part-time interloper, a person who half of the employees there don't even know, or don't recognize that I'm that asshole who bugs them... Read more →