Category: mumbling

I’ve been bad about taking pictures. I keep forgetting to charge the diaper bag camera, so I get somewhere, and realize I have no working equipment. And when I have no photos, I forget to update.

But today the weather made it into the 70s, and we basked in it. I couldn’t even pry the kids off the property to go to the park—the upside of playing at home is that the camera is readily available.

Neko stripped down to her underwear, and never looked back. Susie brought over Chris and Alex, and all the kids soaked up the sunshine.

Okay, I totally admit that my obsession with Playmobil might be considered somewhat unhealthy. But, you know, I have very few vices in this world. Tom has CDs, I have Playmobil. I am aware that we own an absurd amount of the stuff, but how amazing is it when you can recreate a whole world in a tiny scale with so much detail?

I should point out that we began collecting the stuff when Neko wasn’t even able to hold her head up, and owe probably a third of our collection to the fact that Zany Brainy went out of business and had a 50% off everything sale. We still have things in the basement which are waiting for a rainy day. But I’m itching to start cracking them out.

During quiet time, while the kids spent an hour in their rooms, I turned our living room into Playmo-village. I’d been itching to do it for ages, and I finally decided to ignore the laundry and dinner preparation and set it up. Next time I’m at the store, I clearly need thick masking tape, since I had to use blue tape for roads, but all in all, it turned out pretty well. We had houses, a farm, a school, the zoo, a park, and later on Neko made me crack out the train. Although, it’s clear we need to work on her urban planning skills, since her rail placement was less than optimal. Kudos for her support of public transit, though!

I think we may need to break out the post office or grocery store, though. I mean, seriously, where are these people supposed to get food? And if they have no post office, they can’t even order stuff from Amazon. Sheesh.

One of the great things about living in the sticks is that in the morning your husband comes running in to make sure the shades are open so you don’t miss a scene like this.

Shep is becoming Neko’s personal plaything. Tonight, she was dressing him up as a butterfly.

On a totally unrelated note, whoever is sneaking their laundry into our baskets must STOP NOW. I swear, since Ellery was born, the amount of laundry we do has quadrupled. Tom is quick to point out we’re dealing with an infant that pees and spits up on everything and a very bad skunk incident, but I maintain that there are a few households out there that have discovered some wrinkle in the universe which allows them to utilize us as their own personal laundromat.

This morning we discovered that Otto had made a new nap buddy. Ellery is a perfect choice, since she, too, sleeps best touching another warm body plus she lacks the muscle control to scoot away.

These heartwarming moments are the only thing providing salvation from our growing stir-crazy cabin fever. Remember how Jack Nicholson ended up in The Shining? I’m starting to get that scary look in my eyes and I think I’m developing a few new ticks. We have been inside too long.

We were supposed to go to gymnastics today, but the fog made it impossible to see more than a few feet in front of you. They even cancelled school. And now it is afternoon and the sun is shining and we have no destination.

Things have to get better tomorrow. Why? Because all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy…

Holy moly, that’s a lot of snow. If I wasn’t, like, eight thousand months pregnant, we would be out playing in this all day.