fodders day

(my niece lilia and eva)

Happy fathers day to my dad and my danny.

Dad -you have so much energy for my kids and I do love you for it. growing up you were there to tell a weird joke or play pig in the backyard. Your strange humor and lots of hugs and treats galore make you YOU. We all think you are the best.

Danny- You and I get to share equally all this crazy love we have for our children. Laughing about them together and watching you play with and teach the girls is a blessing. Harvey smiling just like you brings tears to my eyes because I know he has a great example in you.

okay enough mushy stuff. now I'm writing a recipe for large group family fun.....

a, pick a major holiday....preferably one where people like to go out to eat...mothers day, fathers day something like that.


b. decide that night you will go out to eat with your entire, exremely large and kid heavy family, to a very popular moderately expensive, nice restaurant. That is located at "The Green" which is a phony feeling fake downtown, outdoor mall, that is constantly packed with people. Not only that they had a really loud 80's cover band with a lady belting out tunes for 4 hours.

c. eat at restaurant. This involved me nursing in a packed lobby with the server telling me to nurse in the family bathroom which didn't actually have a chair inside it. It was so tiny it just had a toilet and a trash can. I wonder where she thought I would sit.....add about 2000 more trips to family restroom because all 600 of our toddlers needed to go non stop. leave restaurant.

d. beat through throngs of joyous fathers day celebrators to go see a movie with all the children. Unfortonately it didn't start for 40 minutes so we had to keep all the children safe (as we sisters traded child abduction stories we'd read or heard about). Enter movie theater and realize there are no seats left. All 1000 of us leave and start telling off the movie theater girl while the kids are crying loud enough to create a sonic boom. don't know what that is but..trust me....its loud. Then wait another 30 minutes to see the next showing. This was Toy story 3 people....there would be a riot if this didn't happen.

e. watch movie. 3-d didn't totally impress me but hey...it was cute seeing 8 kids lined up wearing the glasses. nurse baby in movie, pass out loads of lollypops, leave movie with crying baby....fall asleep in lobby.

and by the way....Rachel I love you happy happy birthday.

we're living in brazil

thats what danny and I keep repeating over and over to eachother. Now neither of us have actually BEEN to Brazil...or even south America. BUT in our view of the planet...Brazil must have weather just like we are having. No where else...Just Brazil.
Now we live nowhere near Brazil...just in the midwestern world of Ohio where people purchase Cincinatti reds onsies for your baby boy.
Harvey is just your everyday midwestern man.
And Eva is your average midwestern yogurt in the yard eating summertime 3 year old.
and Chilly is your average midwestern rat terrier.....Anyone want a dog?

once upon a time

there were three little girls who loved going to the farm. Everytime they went, the farmer would let them go in the chicken coop and pick out some eggs. Everytime they picked out eggs they would cradle them lovingly in their hands, or in the hood of their sweaters, until they would usually crack. And then all heck would break lose. Then the little girls mommy, or grandma or whoever, would go find the farmer and demand more eggs immediately. Then they would be at peace once again. Because these were not just any eggs. They were special eggs that could possibly contain a baby chick.
So then the mommy in a moment of chick hatching excitement devised her own incubator because yes, she is that brilliant. It involved an old cardboard box, a thermometer, two lamps, and that's about it. Well the farm egg loving family pretty much tossed the eggs in the box and forgot about them for quite a while.
Until, one day, while getting ready for bed. There was a chirp. And the little girls ran to see what happened. Because this wasn't their first set of eggs....this was their third set of eggs and the mommy had pretty much given up all hope that her homemade ingenuity would ever produce anything more than a rotton egg....so they looked in side...and...............
here she/he is.....Cookie Flower dotson
an angry little chick who is quite aggressive but he was a survivor. Anyone want a chicken?

its a quarter after one

I hate that song!!!
and truly its way later than that.....Harvey had a 2 a.m. run in with hunger and has been dining ever since. It's now 3:55. ow owwww. Sometimes I forget how tiny he still really is...only 6 weeks. He has never seemed like a true newborn to me and I sit here and admire his dark blue eyes, business man hair, chubby curled up legs and furrowed brow. Danny and i like to call him "the bishop" because of his intense stare down and serious expression. I am thinking of a year ago...I couldn't sleep and spent time browsing the internet. I don't remember where or in what context but I saw the name Harvey written at the end of a sentence. And I remember thinking..."I'm going to have a boy named Harvey." and that was about it. I actually went to bed and told Danny.
When I found out about 2 months later I was pregnant the girls said..."It's HARVEY!!"
and insisted that the baby was absolutely a boy and not a girl.
Now sometimes I try to think of the other names we considered for him during pregnancy...nothing seems to remotely fit. And I think...He has always been Harvey I guess. I just needed a clear message on that because I don't think I would have thought it up myself.
ohhh sleeping baby. nighty night.

All this having a baby biz has really rocked my homeschooling schedule. I would say I started slacking a bit about 3 weeks prior to the event. We still have been trying to keep up with Math and handwriting. She also reads alot everyday. But right now her education involves a bit more diaper changing, lullabying, and carrying Harvey, who is almost half her size, around the house. Addie is working like a full time nanny around here and her energy for her little brother is intense. There is never a morning when she is too tired to hop right out of her bed when she hears him crying, run to his bassinet, change his diaper and clothes, and carry him to me. Today she sat rocking him in her little rocking chair, while I mopped and vacuumed. I think all of this baby loving energy helps offset the stress of Eva, who is loving in a more viscious baby smothering way. She will rock his baby swing with him in it with a look of insanity on her face. She also has felt like fighting about everything she can think of, mostly it's her wanting to torment someone, like putting her foot on Addie's chair, or deciding whatever Addie has is the best thing in the world. I'm trying to give her a large dose of love to hopefully counteract her middle child negativity. Today she sat on the couch looking really sweet and I said, "Eva give me a kiss!" So she gave me the biggest smacker and then yelled "We're MARRIED!!"

I really hope though everything feels easier this fall.
Addie expressed some interest in going to public school. It made the wheels start turning in my head...well okay. She would be fine. She's a smart kid, and she might enjoy it. She could use some more practice with seperating and being a bit more brave.

then I have this whole other line of thinking that is like....What will she be doing at school except sitting around at a desk. We'll miss all those hours together. Someday she'll be grown up and those are hours we can never get back. She is such a good helper now. Why should the school get all the best years of my kids life? She'll be in one room and one building every day of her life. She'll miss out on our trips to the farm, and museums, and long browsing sessions at the library, time to just play outside without a time line. Time to swing. Time to read. Time to draw and paint. I have many friends that told me they started homeschooling because their kids got off the bus at 4:00 watched t.v. for an hour, ate dinner, did homework and went to bed.

So I don't know what to do.

whats up

my super men at his schools annual burrito eating contest...harvey was the star
here's the handsome prince on his blessing day.....
gotta love a bow tie
his hands are attacking him again
horse break
everett is so cute
k

BYE

sitting with Katrina and Nathan at the park today we were watching our youngsters run up and down the plastic play equipment. Kat and I had our babies in tow, perched on the bench, soaking up some vitamin d. I want to add there is nothing like having a sister have a baby along with you....it's like a mirror. We see eachother going through it, see our bodies grow, give birth, and then admiring together the work we accomplished this past year. It's messy and it's not always perfect or fun and there are no pretenses. I guess we aren't much for pretenses anyway. But it is somehow so easy and comforting.
and it was very comforting when Eva and Lilia decided they desperately needed to use the restroom and Nathan bounded at top speed to get the baby potty they had brilliantly remembered. Addie decided she REALLY needed to go too and for that I want to thank my brother in law Nathan terry. Thank you thank you.
This particular park has no indoor facilities and last time Katrina took ALL THREE girls....two of them being mine, and helped them use the porta potty thingy.
Those portapotty's scare me to death. Last year I had a total I KNOW I AM A MOM moment when Eva, sat on the portapotty at a public park, and I had a weird vision of her falling into the murky yuck below. And without even analyzing the situation I knew I would immediately jump down into dark hole and save my child from the stinky well. I think it would be some kind of instinct.
So why didn't ma jump in the well to save carrie on little house on the prairie? that's my question of the night. Good night.