Category: Shep

Soccer. Kind of.

March 27, 2007

Neko had her first soccer practice today. Things like this always bring out the extremes of her personality. The picture says it all. There she is in her pajama top instead of her uniform (which she insisted on), doing her own thing. Later on, she sat on the side, trying to balance herself on the ball while the others listened intently to the coach. Somehow, during a water break, she lost her ball, and she never got her focus back. The rest of the parctice was all about finding her ball, which we didn’t find until long after practice ended.

Thank goodness this is forgiving league, all about having fun, not training the future Mia Hamm.

Shep, meanwhile, was itching to get into the game. It was all we could do to keep him off the field. Ellery slept. And ate.
Exhale

March 25, 2007

After a big morning of over-stimulation, the kids needed a little calm. We sat on the patio and blew bubbles and soaked up the great weather. We cracked out the hose and the water table, and Neko and Shep both got thoroughly soaked.

I declared the day one of the best in ages when, on top of all the other good stuff, I figured out a way of configuring car seats in the Odyssey that has nearly doubled my usable space. Now that’s a present you can’t wrap.
Got milk?

March 23, 2007

I was making muffins for playgroup when Shep joined me. He watched carefully as I measured and poured. And then I turned away for a minute, and when I turned back, this is what my observer was up to.

I didn’t think this was supposed to start happening until his teens. Good thing he’s cute.
Excellent.

March 1, 2007

Apparently now we have two children headed for Harvard.
Zoo

February 26, 2007

I thought I’d try my first solo outing with all three kids. I decided the zoo was my best choice. It’s winter, which means that the museum is crowded, but the zoo is deserted. It seemed smarter to brave the cold, but have less of a crowd in which to lose the kids.

Susie decided to join me with Chris and Alex. And then Nancy jumped in with Griffin, Will, Chloe, and Sarah. So if you haven’t been counting, we’re now up to nine kids under the age of four. Okay, two were stroller-bound, but I’m pretty proud of all of us completing a successful outing. We left with the same number of kids we arrived with, there was no blood shed, and the melt-downs only began as we approached the parking lot.
DJ Jazzy Shep

February 25, 2007

Between this and the guitar, we’re fresh out of Kleenex.
Jam

February 4, 2007

Shep has recently fallen in love with the guitar. Tom has had to keep some Kleenex on hand just for moments like this.
Back from the brink

February 1, 2007

Today was one of those hard days. We hosted playgroup and Neko whined and cried up until the last five minutes where she became a glowing happy kid. Ridiculous. Then no one ate lunch, and everyone went to nap/quiet time crying and angry.

The afternoon didn’t go much better. Everyone was needy and grouchy.

By dinner, Tom and I were tapped out. I declared it was time to take drastic measures…the kids would be allowed to eat dinner propped up in front of the tv while they watched Pocahontas. They loved it. Then we told Neko she could take a shower instead of a bath, and to our surprise, Shep (who up until this point has been terrified of the shower) joined her. Fresh and clean, we dumped everyone into pajamas and into bed. And now it’s 8:30pm, both kids are in bed, and there’s 1.5 hours of awesome tv on NBC.

Bad day…saved.
Marble run

January 31, 2007

I’m reaching that point in pregnancy where all I want to do is lie and the couch and complain while everyone showers me with sympathy, delicious food and trashy magazines.

Unfortunately, my days are instead spent running around after two crazy kids who can’t seem to sit still, even while watching television. Neko has figured out how to make, even that, an aerobic activity.

So I made a trip to Target to gather a “survival kit” to get me through the end of this pregnancy. Secret weapons I can pull out mid-afternoon when it seems like 5:00pm is an unattainable goal.

Granted, this is not the beautiful, expensive wooden Quadrilla marble run I covet. But for $15 at Target, Shep was entranced for a full hour, and I think he’ll continue to be amazed. Yes, it does topple over if a light breeze comes along and only comes in day-glo colors, but my standards are plummeting daily.

I can see, however, I should have invested in extra marbles. When we opened the box we had 12, and now we seem to have about three. And the thought of getting on my hands and knees to look under the couch makes me want to vomit.
Child labor

January 22, 2007

It’s cold and snowy outside, and as much as I’ve been wishing for this all winter, I now realize when you’re two weeks away from giving birth, the last thing you want to do is run around after children in the arctic. So we spent a day inside yesterday. All day. Recipe for disaster.

Strangely, it turned out okay.

First, I brought the water table inside. We filled it with warm, bubbly water and I put the kids to work, telling them they could clean all the plastic dishes. Soon they were busy pouring, funneling, and having a great time. This kept them busy for close to an hour. When that grew old, Neko got out the mop and started mopping the floors. This is where my OCD tendencies usually get the best of me, as she was using way too much water, and “cleaning” wouldn’t really be an accurate description of what was going on. Shep had out the broom, and was within inches of knocking half our possessions to the ground.

But, you know, it all turned out okay. Between the water table and the “cleaning”, we managed to kill the entire morning. I even cleaned a little and did a few loads of laundry. Granted, there was that extra load of towels I had to do after I put the kids down for nap, but it was definitely an activity we’ll do again.