Five Months

It's not possible, my friends. It's just really . . . not.

Five months have passed in the space of five minutes. Slow it down, baby, and let Mama catch up.

And They're Off!

Eight. Great.

This year, while on vacation, Rob and I watched the children running on the beach and jumping in and out of the waves.

Rob looked at Fiver and said, "Remember how hard it all used to be?" And I knew exactly what he meant.

It was hard, and sometimes it still is hard, but I feel like we've turned a corner with Fiver. He has grown so much this year, and I don't know if it's our perspective or Fiver himself or a combination of the two, but something has changed. A lot.

It sounds corny to say it, but I want to repeat that line from Pinocchio: "He's a REAL boy!"

In many ways I feel like we are just getting to know the real Fiver now. We were so involved, for so long, with trying to fix or alleviate his developmental delays that we sort of missed the forest for the trees.

Well, I can see it now, and I am amazed. He's a pretty awesome kid.

Happy birthday to you, my love. I can't wait to see where life takes you this year.

Breathing Room

I'm going away for a few days, my friends.

I won't be going anywhere fun, and I won't even be going to that padded room with the dim lights and the soft music that I so often dream about.

Nope, I'm just leaving the computer behind for a little while.

I feel so silly even writing this because I am absolutely CERTAIN that no one is sitting around waiting for my next post, but it seems to be the thing that polite bloggers do. And my mama taught me to mind my manners.

The wheels have seem to come right off around here. The house is a mess, the kids are fractious, the meals are dodgy, Rob is getting absolutely slammed at work, and through it all I feel like I'm watching the last few days of our golden summer slip through my hands.

I know that seems so melodramatic, but I feel it just the same. There is something here that I need to grab one last time before it's gone.

Fiver has started cross country, Bun has started speech therapy, the kids go back to school soon, and as much as I love being on our own summer timetable, I am starting to crave that familiar comfort of a stricter schedule.

And a clean house. I really, really want a clean house.

The problem is that I am the one who needs to devise the schedule and clean the house, and I can't do it when I feel like I am too busy reading blogs and trying to comment and scrolling quickly through Facebook and all the rest of the little rabbit holes the internet provides for my distraction.

So. I'm taking a little time for the HomeFront, for the team, for my prayer life, and for my sanity, although I might be a smidge too late for that last one.

I'll be seeing you, my friends.

Quick Takes: Livin' Large Edition

Well, it's still summer. Even though I feel like each day is both ten years long and zipping by at light speed.

It's also raining and the kids have almost perfected Lord of the Flies in the playroom (GIVE ME THE CONCH!), so that makes it a choice time for me to do some Quick Takes.

It's either that or pull out the single malt. Or put them all at the corner with a sign that says FREE. Or both.

My sister was here last night, and as I was putting something away in the fridge, she did a double take at the amount of pudding we have stocked. For one week.

She actually asked if I was stocking up for the apocalypse. She won't be laughing when she needs to survive on iodide tablets and pudding.

I told her what my sister-in-law (also a mother of five) and I were just discussing on the phone a few weeks ago: for the most part, bulk shopping is now our regular food shopping. I try to be as conservative with the food as possible, but it takes a lot to keep this place running.

Milk alone is enough to break us, and I don't even have a place big enough to store all the milk we need. I have mightily resisted having an extra fridge, thinking that I could just be more efficient, organized, space-saving, blah, blah, blah, and use the perfectly good ONE fridge we have. Let's just say that I am good, but not that good.

And also, why don't they sell milk in larger containers than a gallon? We could set something up like those big filtered water pitchers with the spigot that sit on your refrigerator shelf. We could really use some thing like that.

Without further ado, here is a whirlwind tour of our extra large groceries. I can guarantee it will be the most mundane content ever to grace your feed reader.

One

Here is the aforementioned apocalyptic pudding stash. Just plain old chocolate and vanilla, but we usually have a second layer on top of this one. What can I say? We all enjoy a good pudding cup. Besides, even the "family pack" only comes with twelve pudding cups. If each of the kids has a pudding cup after dinner each night . . . well, you can do the math.

Two

We don't go through this Vat O' Peanut Butter in one week, but if I get a smaller size, we do. This probably lasts a good two and a half weeks here.

Three

You'd be surprised at how fast this toilet paper goes, given the questionable bathroom habits of some of the younger members of this family.

Four

We have no use for the cute little wipes boxes. With two still in diapers and countless hand/face wipes throughout the day, we go straight for the ginormous refill bag as our everyday size.

Five

Unless Rob wants a fancy flavor, I've given up buying little yogurt cups. There's just no point since I spend more money and have less space in the fridge when I do. These tubs are less than a week's worth of yogurt for this bunch. We like our yogurt. It's almost as good as the pudding.

Six

The Great Wall of Waffles.

Seven

Barbecue sauce anyone? Now, this jug will last for quite a while, and I can't even blame the kids for the barbecue sauce consumption around here. Ketchup, well that's another ball game, but the barbecue sauce is hand's down Rob's favorite condiment. He would eat a shoe if you covered it in enough barbecue sauce. Seriously. He was in the military, folks. He might have actually eaten a shoe at some point.

So there you have it, groceries the HomeFront Corp. way. Come on over any time -- it's loud and messy, but we can always offer you a pudding cup.

Be sure to visit Jen at Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes, and have a lovely weekend, my friends.

PS: I forgot that Quick Takes are being hosted by Betty Beguiles this week. Hop over there instead.

The One Where I Remember I Have a Blog

These last few weeks of summer are handing me my butt in a sling.

We are less than three weeks from the first day of school, and I finally realized that I have a ton of stuff to do. Like finding a time machine and going back to the beginning of the summer so I can point at myself and laugh over my promise to make Fiver practice his handwriting every day without fail.

I'm not sure two weeks of hasty scribbling with your harried mother breathing down your neck can be considered plenty of preparation. Now where's that time machine?

When I mentioned that I really needed to post something on the blog, my sister casually said, "But it's a hobby, right? You're not supposed to feel guilty about not having the time to post regularly."

Aha -ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! She obviously does not have a mom blog.

To sum up: I am busy with the end of the summer. I feel guilty about not doing important things with the kids over the summer. I feel guilty about ditching the blog, but I will be back.

Also? I need a time machine.

The end.


PS: I did finish the book for book club, and with plenty of time to spare. We read The Wednesday Letters, by Jason F. Wright. It is considered religious fiction, and it while it had a very good message about forgiveness, some of the characters felt underdeveloped. Just my two cents.

PS 2: I just did spell check and I had no spelling errors. I'm on fi-yah!

Burning the Midnight Oil. At The Oasis.

That's it, I am officially keeping a notebook by my bed to write down all the awesome blog post ideas I get at 3 AM and then forget by 7:45.

Oh who am I kidding? The kids will find that notebook and claim for their own, just like the rest of the stuff they have taken off my nightstand, including my thermometer and NFP charts.

How did I get five kids again?

(kidding, people. SO kidding. Everyone remain calm. NFP works. I repeat, just kidding, NFP works. Please don't send me either hate mail or "I told you so" mail.)

Anyway, I really do get some fun ideas at odd times, but I cannot retain them because I have been cramming for Book Club. I know I'm not supposed to capitalize Book Club, but it just feels fancier if I do. Fancy is as fancy does.

(I don't even know what that means because I am so tired. Ignore me.)

I got the selected book yesterday and the meeting is Friday night. Think I can finish it? I'm betting I can, because it's a quick read and I have become pretty good at staying up late. That's thanks to my on-the-job motherhood training right there.

I haven't stayed up this late reading since I was cramming for finals during college. I was never one of those who stayed up for the entire night, but I do remember dragging myself to bed around 3 AM several times.

(Luckily for me, there was no 6 AM wake-up call by a blond two year old, just standing there and staring and breathing. Waiting for me to open my eyes and see him 3.6 inches from my nose. Creepy.)

Whoa, tangential much, tonight, Aimee? Don't worry, I haven't taken up meth, I'm just trying to post something before I have to get back to reading and I lose another chance at my computer time.

Another thing I remember about finals during college was Midnight at the Oasis. I kid you not.

I went to a small college, out in the middle of cornfields, and our cafeteria closed at some ridiculous hour like 4:30 PM. Seriously, we all became like senior citizens racing in there for the early bird special before they closed up shop.

Once that cafe closed, unless you had a stash of food in your room or you had a car/friend with a car, you were done for the night. And forget about trying to walk anywhere. When I say cornfields, I mean like huge, sprawling cornfields. I would have had to be ready to chew my own arm off before I thought of walking a couple miles past PITCH BLACK cornfields. Again, creepy.

Plus, I had no money. None. Not even a little change in my pocket going jing-a-ling-a-ling. (Quick, name that song and artist!)**

No wonder I was at my lowest weight in college. Fear, poverty, and stress work wonders on a waistline.

I don't know who came up with the Midnight at the Oasis plan, but here's what happened: They would open the cafe at midnight and let you in to eat junk and drink coffee. Simple, yet enticing. I was so there, since I was so hungry that my stomach was cannibalizing itself by that point.

They even piped in that awful Maria Muldaur song of the same name from the '70s as we waited in line. And I'm sorry if you like that song, but it's awful. "Cactus is our friend?" Really? Oh well, I was hungry so I could deal.

In addition to Midnight at the Oasis, our parents were strong armed guilted persuaded to send money in so that the school would deliver an "exam survival kit" to their beloved, long-studying son or daughter.

What was in the survival kit? Gatorade, Pop-Tarts, granola bars and some kind of caffeine pill like No-Doze or Vivarin. So we'd all be nice and jittery for our tests in the morning. Yikes.

But my parents sent me one, God bless them, and I had the good sense to binge on Pop-Tarts and leave the caffeine pills alone. I've always been a carb girl.

I know my parents had no money while I was in college. None. But they sent me a survival kit anyway and I've always appreciated it.

I wonder what kinds of things my kids will need or want of me when they go away to college?
Will my kids want me to send them a survival kit when they are cramming for exams? Will those kinds of things even be offered?

Maybe I'll download "Midnight at the Oasis" now, just in case I need to send it to them with a ten dollar bill wrapped around a Pop-Tart and a couple of caffeine pills from Mama. You know, kickin' it old school.

Time Keeps On Slippin', Slippin', Slippin' . . .

Uh, can anyone tell me what just happened to July? Because I blinked and I missed it.

I could have sworn I had a few more weeks of July left, but the calendar says August, so I guess not. Humph.

Last week was busy, in a "get settled back in and see what went wrong with the house while we were gone" kind of way. Do you have that too?

It never fails that we go away for vacation and we come home to find that our house has been invaded by ants or birds have made a huge nest in the eaves or a major appliance has kicked the bucket.

This year there were no ants; I always check for that first after a particularly heinous experience as a newlywed in Florida. Not a pretty sight. And neither were the ants.

There were also no signs of birds, bats, or other winged creatures trying to come home to roost, and all our major appliances are humming right along. We will have to replace the upstairs toilet, for reasons too numerous and boring to mention, but we were expecting that.

All in all, a good homecoming.

In other news, allow me to introduce you to the whitest boy in America. And possibly the world.

And this is AFTER a week at the beach. Seriously, he is so white he glows. Play that funky music, white boy.

My husband would like me to point out that he could have easily fried up like a little piece of bacon at the beach if it was not for his nearly compulsive sunscreen re-application habits.

Rob has seen some seriously bad skin stuff in his office, so I give him free reign with the sunscreen. He would like you all to know that the key is not the SPF, it's proper and timely application and re-application. If your kid ain't greezed up like a pig at the county fair, then you're not doing it right.

We went through six full bottles of sunscreen, and you can take that to the bank because you know I don't exaggerate. Ever. (Although this time, I'm really not exaggerating.)

Besides finding out that Mr. Alabaster McWhitepants is a HUGE beach bum, we also had his speech evaluated by our county's Early Intervention. (After we got home, of course. But how cool would your job be if you could do speech evals on the beach?)

Guess what? The boy can't talk.

It doesn't come as a surprise at all, considering I told the speech therapist that I knew he was delayed when she walked in the door. I'm sure she wasn't at all annoyed by me telling her what to write in her report.

She was actually very nice, and she knew that we had had experience with delays and therapy in general with Fiver, so I think she was able to see that I knew the ropes already.

Bun is about a year behind his speech milestones, so now he's all set up for speech therapy. Rob and I joke that our house operates under The Law of Conservation of Therapy, which states that as soon as one child is discharged from therapy of any kind, another must take his place.

Ah well, those two weeks of no therapy were really great! Ever onward, my friends . . .

In other news, last week was also Horse Camp Week. It's like Shark Week, but on land and with no carnage. It's a very highly anticipated event around here.

Francie and Dakota, her quarter horse. If by "her" quarter horse, you mean the one we don't own and who lives at the stable. But not for lack of begging on Francie's part.

And last, but not least, this little lady turned four months old this weekend. Whoa, nelly. She's discovered her favorite fingers to suck, her feet, and people's hair. She's chubby and she smiles all the time.

She's also sleeping through the night in her own crib.

Just listen to those angel choirs sing.

Today, while playing with the baby, Fiver turned to Rob and said, "Isn't she the best baby we've ever had?"

Rob replied, "She's definitely in the top five."

I'd agree with that.