Category: mumbling

This weekend Tom the Top Notch Husband took the kids out for the afternoon so I could finally deal with the stacks and stacks of paperwork that had been accumulating in and around our filing cabinet since, oh, I don’t know, maybe when I got pregnant with Ellery?

The amount I weeded out and shredded filled two enormous trash bags. Ridiculous.

Somewhere in the early days of 2008 Tom and I thought it would be great to schedule a vacation because we hadn’t left town as a family unit since last June. So the last week in April? Sounds perfect!

What we hadn’t considered was the complete exhaustion which would consume our bodies by then after having celebrated 80% of our family birthdays in less than three months, attempting to make each one special and unique.

So at 8pm the night before our trip to Florida? Not one thing has been packed in a suitcase.

I think the exhaustion may have completely cured my OCD, since I’m just randomly flinging things in the general direction of a suitcase.

Gregory, Chris, and Alex came over to play. I can’t think of any better way to celebrate Earth Day than playing outside. Except for buying one of our new Earth Day inspired tees. (Shameless plug.)

Well, and then there was that part where I turned around and Shep and Alex were gleefully hurling dog food into the air. Ellie? Not so impressed.

Every time someone puts these glasses on, I just can’t stop laughing. Shep parades around the house with them on, and I can’t decide if he’s a robot or some sort of bug.

I would love to thank whoever gave us these glasses for Neko and Shep’s joint birthday, but I can’t. Some people brought a special present just for Neko and Shep, and since I was busy with the party, Neko whisked them off to her room where she opened everything in one big pile, and I have no idea who gave us what. And then some people gave us cards and those got thrown in the pile and…ARGH.

Anyway, it’s all just a very big mess and I’d like to say thank you to everyone who gave them something (even though it was totally not necessary!). Miss Manners is rolling over in her grave somewhere.

Today Neko ran over to the swing, spun it as tight as it would go, and then flew around in circles as it unwound, giggling until it came to a stop.

That’s the funny thing about being a parent. You have these moments where you look over and your children are doing things you used to do, things you hadn’t even thought about since you were a kid.

With Earth Day on the horizon, we’re working on some shirts for Wire & Twine. One of them is about 50 easy ways to go a little greener, and it’s got me thinking. I’m pretty good at recycling and we made the switch to cloth diapers, but there are some things I could be doing better. So I think I’m going to try to do one thing a month.

This month: batteries. We’ve been using rechargeables for the baby monitors since Neko came along, but we’ve been using traditional batteries for everything else. As I wandered through the aisles of Target the other day, I stumbled upon this Energizer Family Charger. It’s big enough to charge many batteries at a time, and it charges batteries of any size. For $30, I can make the switch. Now, every time we need new batteries, I’m going to buy a set of rechargeables instead.

Okay, so maybe I chose a project for my first month that may be in progress for a whole year, but, um, good start?

Look! Our seeds! Are growing!

Tom cunningly replaced the the bulbs in our oven hood with those ones that you use to simulate natural light, and then we sprung for the warming pad, and suddenly it’s like we have green thumbs sprouting out of our toes.

Our next big challenge will be to see if we can make the transition from cozy seedling environment to The Great Outdoors.

After days and days of rain, the sun finally peeked out from behind the clouds. And Neko? She had put together a very complicated dinosaur costume that involved these red pajamas turned inside out, scales, and a tail. And when I told her she had to put on real clothes to go to the park, she flat-out refused. So we stayed home all day.

When the sun finally shone so bright I couldn’t stand it anymore, I relented and sent them outside, pajamas and all.

Shep can feel free to use this photo on his Project Runway application.